


Zero Sum

by JCapasso



Series: The Void [1]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:49:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 45
Words: 74,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28610859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: Starts during 5x22. Nathan doesn't come back through the thinny that Duke opens so Audrey tries to go after him. Duke grabs her to stop her, but ends up getting pulled along. With Audrey's ring dropped on the wrong side and Nathan's stolen from his dead body by William, will they even be /able/ to get home?
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Audrey Parker
Series: The Void [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2105556
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

Audrey wasn’t quite sure what to say to Duke. Everything she could say had already been said. Haley was dying anyway. There was no way to save her. The only thing he could have done was to save her a little bit of suffering which he did. She could tell how much that still weighed on him though and she wished that she could have done it for him. Instead of trying to talk to him about that, she turned her attention to the problem at hand and held out her ring for him. “Okay, so…take this ring and make a thinny however you can.”

Duke took the ring nervously as he told her, “But Audrey…if Nathan doesn’t come back, you have to promise me that you’re not gonna go in there after him.”

“Duke, I can’t,” she said regretfully. Not only was she not going to leave Nathan behind, but without that controller crystal they were all doomed. 

“Audrey, listen to me. I saw what happened to Haven if Nathan doesn’t come back. Can you imagine what the future’s gonna look like if you disappear too?” he tried to reason with her. 

Audrey knew that it wasn’t Nathan’s absence that would have caused the disaster, but the absence of the control crystal. They had to get that crystal by any means necessary. Saving Nathan was just a bonus. A very important bonus, for sure, but the crystal was more important. If Nathan couldn’t get it here, then she would have to go get it herself. There was no other choice. She knew that she wasn’t going to convince Duke of that though so she just ignored it and told him, “He is there on the other side of that thinny and when you open it up, he is coming home.” 

“Alright,” Duke sighed. He only hoped it worked out so well. He cut his hand and gripped the ring tightly in it, concentrating as hard as he could to open the doorway. It took a minute and a few false starts, but it was finally there and looked relatively stable. 

Audrey waited and waited, even going so far as to call for Nathan, but he never came through so she knew what she had to do. She didn’t bother saying anything to Duke. It would just give him a chance to shut it down or try to stop her some other way. He knew the two hour protocol and would open it again for her. If he could. She refused to think what would happen if he couldn’t. If this was a one use trouble. She just jumped in without a word. 

Duke noticed her moving and reached out to grab her with his nearest hand which just happened to be the one with the ring. He caught the back of her jacket as his other hand came around to grab her too, but he ended up getting yanked through with her just as the thinny closed due to his lack of concentration and the two of them rolled to the ground in some kind of cave. “What the hell do…” 

Duke’s admonishment was cut off by Audrey’s scream of, “Nathan!” as she scrambled to her feet and across the cave. “Oh my god, no!” she cried. 

Duke turned to see what she was looking at and got halfway to her before he felt the bile rising in his throat and had to turn away before he was sick. Seeing Nathan’s broken body half underneath a boulder as tall as Audrey sitting from his stomach down to his knees was one of the more gruesome sights he’d seen in his life. He took a few deep breaths to get his stomach under control before moving over to grab Audrey and pull her away, trying to shield her from the sight as she started crying in his arms. He squeezed his eyes shut against his own tears that still managed to leak through anyway as he led her back through the archway they’d come through. Once she was reasonably calm, he sat her down on one of the rocks jutting out that seemed decent as a seat. “You stay in here. I’ll go…take care of him.” 

“We…we need to take him home,” she stammered heartbrokenly. 

“I know. But first I need to move that boulder,” Duke told her. He hoped that his strength boost would still work with Nathan’s blood otherwise there was no way it was moving. He also hoped that there was still enough of Nathan left underneath it to take home. 

Audrey tried to catch her breath as she wiped her tears. There was still a job to do before they could leave. “I…I need to…to check if he has the…the crystal.” 

“I’ll check,” Duke promised. She didn’t need to see that again. 

Audrey nodded slowly, and deflated as she leaned against the cave wall behind her. She felt awful leaving the job to Duke, but she didn’t think she could stomach it again either. She wouldn’t be able to move the boulder anyway. Still, “I can’t just…just sit here…”

Duke knew the need for a job to do. Any job. “Why don’t you start looking around for the ring then. It should be somewhere on the ground in here.” 

“Okay. I can do that,” she said shakily. It was too dark in here to see that well, but she could feel around for it. 

Duke headed back out to the larger portion of the cave and swallowed heavily around the lump in his throat with a whispered, “Sorry, Nate,” as he put a finger in the still wet pool of blood seeping out from underneath the boulder. When he felt the transformation overtake him, he easily lifted the boulder and tossed it aside, then proceeded to toss his lunch as the transformation faded. 

“Duke?” Audrey called worriedly at the sound of retching. 

“Stay…stay there,” Duke called weakly. They definitely weren’t going to be able to take more than half of Nathan home. Once his stomach was finished heaving he took a few deep steadying breaths, wishing there was some water in here, before turning back to the body, doing his best to ignore the mush under the now exposed ribcage, and started looking for a crystal. He found it in Nathan’s breast pocket, thankfully undamaged. At least it /looked/ undamaged. “I’ve got the crystal.”

“The ring isn’t here,” Audrey called back. “Are you sure you didn’t drop it on the other side?” 

Duke thought for a second before cursing. “I might have,” he admitted. “Without the ring though…”

“It’s okay,” Audrey said, getting up to head over without even thinking. “N-Nathan has one…” That was as far as she got before she saw the body and her own lunch hit the ground. 

Duke rushed to her side and held her hair back with one hand as the other rubbed her back soothingly. “I told you to stay there,” he chided gently. 

Once Audrey was finished she turned to sit, leaning back against the wall of the cave and putting her head between her knees, unable to bring herself to even look up. “A-around his neck. O-on a chain,” she managed to say. 

Duke ran a comforting hand through her hair before moving over to check, finding nothing. “It’s not here. There’s no chain or ring.” 

“That’s impossible,” Audrey said worriedly. “I know he had it when he came through…William,” she all but snarled the last word. “It had to have been William.”

“We don’t know that. He might have lost it somewhere…” Duke tried to find a bright side. 

“No,” Audrey shook her head. “That boulder didn’t just fall on him. It was put there.”

“William couldn’t have lifted that boulder,” Duke reasoned. “I even had trouble while transformed.” 

“But his Aether goons could have,” Audrey said, anger burning away her grief. “Nathan wouldn’t have lost the ring. William took it. And he used it to go home. That’s the only explanation.” 

“Audrey…if both rings are gone…then we’re trapped here,” Duke said slowly. 

Audrey’s anger found a new target as she surged to her feet and rounded on Duke. “Why the hell did you have to come after me?!” she snapped. “If you had just stayed…”

“I wasn’t trying to come after you,” Duke replied, trying not to rise to her temper. “I was trying to grab you and stop you from coming. I didn’t plan on getting yanked through.” The suction once she was in the thinny was stronger than he’d expected. 

“You should have just let me go. I could have gotten the crystal and been back by now,” she said harshly before stormed off through the cave. 

Duke rushed after her, grabbing her arm and when she turned and pushed him away, he raised his arms in surrender and took a few steps back. “Look, I know you’re pissed right now. I get it. But we need to not split up in these caves and risk getting lost.” He knew that her anger was the only way she was dealing with her grief at the moment so he was trying not to take it personally. Key word, trying. 

“Well I’m sure as hell not staying in there with…with…” the tears started welling up again. 

“I know,” Duke said gently, not sure if he should reach out or not right now, so focused on what he /could/ do, which wasn’t much. He looked around and started grabbing up pebbles from the ground. “You can look around, just don’t go too far and leave a trail,” he said as he handed them to her. “I’ll see if I can’t get out that hole in the ceiling and…and I’ll go bury him.” 

Audrey swallowed heavily and nodded. When he started to walk away, she called, “Duke?” He turned back to look at her. “I’m sorry. For yelling at you.”

“Water under the bridge,” he said with a tight smile before he continued back towards Nathan. Or what was left of him, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

Duke ended up having to move the boulder over under the hole to climb on, but got Nathan up and out. He would have preferred to dig a better hole, but without a shovel or anything else to dig with, it didn’t amount to much more than a slight divot that was covered up with dirt and leaves. With the way the temperature was dropping as it got darker, he couldn’t stay out here for much longer as it was. Hopefully that would be enough to keep the carrion off of it. If there were even any here. He set all of Nathan’s clothes and everything else he had on him aside and hid it in the trunk of a tree for later except the gun that he kept on him. It would all need to be cleaned thoroughly, but if they had to survive on their own here, an extra coat or shoes could be the difference between living and dying. 

On the way back he grabbed as many sticks and branches as he could carry and tossed them back down the hole and then went looking for more. The cut on his hand wasn’t helping him any, but there wasn’t time to try and bandage it right now. Once his hands started getting numb and cramping from the cold, he tossed down the last group, hoping that would be enough to get them through the night, and jumped back down himself. The first thing he did was move it all to the next cavern over in the direction that Audrey went and then grabbed a load to follow her trail, looking for a good spot to hunker down for the night along the way. 

It didn’t take long for him to find a smaller cavern with a narrow opening, just barely big enough for them to squeeze through, and it even had a small hole in the ceiling that the smoke would vent through. The black goo dripping down one side of the walls he didn’t like, but you couldn’t have everything. They could just stay away from that wall. He started shoving his load of sticks through the opening as he called for Audrey. They could explore more tomorrow. They needed to get a fire lit and hunkered down as soon as possible before they froze to death. 

He was just sliding the last of that load through the crack when Audrey came up. “What are you doing?” 

“The temperature is dropping fast. I grabbed as much firewood as I could and this cavern here should be good for the night. It’s enclosed enough hold in most of the heat. You wanna help me get the rest of the wood moved in here?” 

She nodded and followed him, deciding to wait until they got the fire going before she started the conversation they needed to have. He didn’t seem to be having too much trouble yet, so it could wait and he was right that it was getting very cold. Even with all the walking she was doing, it was setting into her bones. It took them three more trips to get all the wood moved and she started stacking it up near the entrance while he took a good portion of it to the center of the floor and pulled out his lighter to get it lit. 

“This lighter isn’t going to last forever, so it would be worth both our while to start practicing lighting fires the old fashioned way,” Duke told her as he got it started and leaned down to blow on it to get it spread rather than waste lighter fluid to get more points to start from. “That’s a problem for tomorrow though.” 

“We have a lot of problems for tomorrow,” Audrey sighed, not even knowing where to begin. “But there is one more we need to deal with tonight.” 

“As long as it doesn’t require leaving this cave,” Duke chuckled, holding his icy hands over the fire and rubbing them together to get the feeling back in them. 

Audrey looked around, noticing the dripping black wall and said a relieved, “it doesn’t.”

“Okay, then shoot,” Duke told her. 

“Humans don’t survive for long here. Like half a day tops,” she said bluntly. “I’m not sure why, but I think it’s something like toxins in the air. That’s why N-Nathan had to hurry.” She still stumbled a bit over his name. 

Duke let out a heavy breath and closed his eyes. “So I’m a dead man anyway,” he said quietly before shaking it off and turning to business. “Okay, crash course in survival then,” he said seriously, pulling his knife and lighter out of his pocket to hand her. “First, how to find food…”

“Duke, stop,” Audrey cut him off, not taking the items offered. 

“We don’t have a whole lot of time here, remember?” Duke reminded her. 

“There’s a way around it. For you to survive,” she told him. 

“Okay, how?” Duke asked suspiciously, wondering why she wouldn’t have led with that. 

“If we link you to me, like Mara did with William, it’ll make you strong enough to survive here indefinitely,” she told him. 

“Okay, is that even possible? How does it work?” 

“Yes, it’s possible. It’s…well…we would have to…have sex and…and use a lot of Aether to form the link,” she motioned at the wall it was dripping down. 

“Oh…um…there’s a chance we’re kinda…already linked then?” Duke said hesitantly. 

Audrey blinked at him for a long moment before asking, “How?” 

“Well…I kinda…slept with Mara, and I didn’t know it at the time, but she used a whole lot of Aether during to make me into the trouble bomb thing and…um…yeah,” Duke admitted. 

“You…slept with Mara,” Audrey said dangerously. “Why would you even…how could you…”

“Look, she played me okay? I let her get in my head and she used every weakness, insecurity, and fear I had against me and I played right into her hands. I was an idiot,” he explained. 

“I don’t…I mean…this is…” Audrey had no idea what to think about that and tried to wrap her head around it before shaking it off. There would be time for that later. “We can continue that conversation another time,” she told him before getting back on track. “But no, we’re not already linked. First of all, there has to be the intention, from both sides, for it to work. Secondly, I would have been able to feel it if we were linked like I could with William.” 

“Oh. Okay,” Duke said with a wince. He could have kept that little tidbit to himself then, but it was too late now. “Then I think I’ll pass. I’ve had enough of that evil black goo for one lifetime already and to be honest, the idea of sleeping with you when you don’t actually want me that way…not a fan.” 

Audrey knew that even having this conversation right now was a betrayal to Nathan’s memory. Within hours of his death. But Duke’s death was only hours away if she didn’t and saving his life trumped honoring the dead so she had to bite the bullet. She could mourn Nathan later. “Why would you think I don’t want you that way?” 

“You chose Nathan over me,” Duke pointed out. 

“I chose you first in Colorado. You made it clear that you didn’t want me, so I tried to move on,” she pointed out, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. 

“How did I make that clear?” Duke asked incredulously. 

“You stopped. You didn’t want…”

“You were drunk, Audrey,” Duke said seriously. “I did want it, just not like that.” 

“I wasn’t drunk. I was buzzed. They call it liquid courage for a reason you know,” she huffed. 

“Well how was I supposed to know that?” Duke argued. “I could tell you weren’t in full control of your faculties. I had no idea how far it went. When you didn’t bring it up after that I figured you just came to your senses and then as soon as we got back, you started talking about loving Nathan, so…”

“He was…was d-dead,” Audrey said, stumbling over the words given what was going on now. “I was hysterical and still feeling the brunt of rejection. I didn’t know what I was saying and I definitely didn’t mean it like you apparently took it. If I had I would have acted on it. Like I did with you. And I don’t mean the pity kiss when I was saying goodbye before the barn.” Deep down she knew that if things had been normal…if they hadn’t been rushing from one crisis to another and stealing small bits of time whenever they could manage…she and Nathan never would have lasted. 

“What are you saying?” Duke asked, trying to wrap his head around that. 

“I’m saying that I love you, Duke. It’s always been you,” she said, words tasting like ash in her mouth in the wake of Nathan’s death, but they were no less true. 

Duke shook his head, unable to actually believe that. “You know, I’ve heard similar words before. From someone else wearing that same face,” he scoffed. 

“You can’t tell the difference between me and Mara?” she asked, more than a little hurt. 

“I…um…” Truth was, he was mostly just scared to believe her. Scared of what it would do to him if she turned on him too. 

“You really think I would set you up for that kind of fall?” she asked when it was clear that he had nothing to say to the last question. 

“To save my life? Yeah, maybe,” Duke said honestly. 

“I…” Audrey paused as his words hit her and she realized, “Okay, maybe you’re right. I might actually go that far to save your life. I don’t know. But that’s not what this is, Duke.” 

Duke scrutinized her for a long moment as he considered that. The way she admitted that he could be right and didn’t know if she would or not meant that she could actually be telling the truth, but he just couldn’t make that make sense. “Since when?” he had to ask.


	3. Chapter 3

“I think I had for a while but I didn’t realize it until I got kidnapped the first time. When…when you found me and grabbed me…the second I heard your voice and realized it was you…I knew I was safe. That nothing could ever hurt me as long as you were around. Being wrapped in your arms was like…like home I guess is the only way I can describe it.” 

“And yet you pulled away and jumped in Nathan’s arms as soon as he walked in,” Duke pointed out. 

“Partially it was because I had to tell him about Rosalind, but…mostly…I was scared. That kind of realization…and the adrenaline at the time, and…it was just too much at once, you know?” 

Duke nodded slowly. He could understand that. It had knocked him for a loop when he realized it too. He knew that whether he decided to do the linking thing or not, he needed her to know that her feelings weren’t one-sided. “You should know that I…I love you too,” he said nervously. Those weren’t words that came naturally to him and even knowing that she felt the same way didn’t make it easier to say. 

“Since when?” it was her turn to ask as she moved around to his side of the fire, closing some of the distance between them after that admission. 

“When…when Jeff died…I was an emotional wreck, no matter how hard I tried to hide it,” Duke told her, reaching his undamaged mostly warmed hand out towards her in invitation and she took it, threading their fingers together. “You saw through me though and even though there was work you needed to do, you just came and sat with me on the edge of the dock. You didn’t say much, but you didn’t need to. You were just there. You…cared. That meant…everything.” 

Audrey smiled slightly as she squeezed his hand moving closer. “That’s what you meant when you said it was too bad I was a cop.” 

“Yeah. And then you made me think that maybe it didn’t have to matter.”

“And then I stood you up,” Audrey sighed sadly. “I’m so sorry about that. I wish…”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Duke shook his head. “It was a long time ago.” He wasn’t going to admit that it still hurt. He didn’t want to talk about it. 

“Does this mean you’ll do the link?” she asked hopefully. 

“I don’t know,” he said hesitantly. 

“Please, Duke. I can’t…I can’t lose you too. I just…can’t,” she begged. 

“It would make me immortal wouldn’t it?” Immortal and trapped here in this awful place for god only knew how long. Maybe even forever. It wasn’t an appealing thought even without the need for the evil black goo. 

Audrey knew what he was thinking and she knew that she was being selfish for even asking, but she couldn’t help it, so she tried to convince him the only way she knew for sure would work. “How long do you think I’ll be able to survive here without you?” she asked. “You can’t possibly teach me enough in the time we would have left.” She was pretty good in her own right and in a normal situation she was sure she would be able to manage, but this wasn’t a normal situation. She had nothing. A lighter and a knife wasn’t enough for her to survive on her own even if the solitude didn’t do her in. 

Duke realized then that he didn’t have a choice. She was trapped here too and he couldn’t just let himself die and abandon her to it, even if she didn’t need his help to survive. Instead of a verbal response, he just reached his other hand out to brush through her hair, settling at the back of her neck as he pulled her in for a tender kiss. 

Audrey forced all thoughts of Nathan out of her head for the moment and just focused on Duke as she slid her hands up his arms and around his neck, closing the last bit of distance between them as she kissed him back. Duke’s other arm wrapped around her lower back, holding her close as the kiss grew more heated but then he pulled back. He didn’t go far though and rested his forehead against hers. “Is that a yes?” Audrey asked hopefully. 

“Yeah, it’s a yes, but let me just stoke the fire and throw some more wood on if we’re gonna be indisposed for a while,” he said, trying to force himself to let her go and do just that. He just couldn’t shake the irrational fear that all this would disappear if he let go. 

“That’s probably a good idea,” she said softly, not able to bring herself to let go either. 

Duke gave her one more short needy kiss before tearing himself away and she quickly moved to help him and make it go quicker. And not just because she could see him getting weaker and unsteady on his feet. No sooner than the fire was good and ready, Duke spun around and swept her up in a searing kiss, pressing her back against one of the clean walls of the cave and she responded eagerly, moving her hands to start unbuttoning his shirt. He took the hint and quickly got her coat opened, pulling back enough to push it off her shoulders just as she got to the last button of his shirt. 

Audrey let her coat fall to the floor of the cave and shoved his coat and the two shirts under it off and then her blouse and his undershirt and she was back against the wall as his lips moved down her neck, sliding her bra strap off her shoulder as kisses were pressed there too. Audrey wrapped a leg around his waist giving a mewling moan as he took the invitation and rolled his hips, pressing his erection against her core before his hands slid up her back and unclasped her bra and it got tossed to the side, just barely missing the fire. 

When Audrey’s hands went to the front of Duke’s pants, he let out a low moan as his hands roamed her soft skin, one of them massaging her pert breasts. It wasn’t until he felt his pants being pushed down that he stopped and cursed. “Audrey wait…we can’t…” he gasped out, almost in physical pain at the prospect. 

“Wh-what’s wrong?” she asked, freezing with her hands over his almost bare ass with his pants partially down. 

“I don’t have…any condoms on me…and…we can’t risk…”

“Oh that,” she gave a relieved sigh and resumed her activities as she said, “I’m covered. Don’t worry.” 

“You’re sure?” he asked hopefully. A baby was the last thing they needed right now. 

“I’m sure,” she said honestly and then his lips were attacking hers again as his hands moved to her pants. 

Once they were both naked, Duke felt Audrey pushing him back and he let her steer them until he felt the gooey wall against his back and he winced slightly at the feel, trying not to think about what it was, and then she was turning them to coat herself in the stuff too before her leg hooked back around Duke’s waist, both of them letting out gasping moans as his rock hard length dragged against her wet mound. Duke shifted his position enough to thrust up inside her, pressing her tighter against the wall. 

Audrey clutched at Duke’s shoulders as her lips moved down his neck, trying to taste as much of him as she could before she had to dirty it and then reached her hands back to get globs of the Aether from the wall and slathered it over his shoulders and chest. Duke took the hint and did the same, letting his hands trail over her body as he continued thrusting into her and they both panted for breath as they lost themselves in the sensations. 

As much as Duke wanted nothing more than to drag this out, he could feel the weakness setting in and knew that this link had to be finished soon if he was going to be in any shape to complete it at all, so he picked up his pace, glad that she seemed to be right there with him and her other leg came off the floor to give him a better angle. The sound of grunts and moans and flesh slapping against flesh echoed through the small cavern as he pinned her harder against the wall with each desperate thrust and when he felt her walls clenching around him as she cried out her orgasm, he followed right behind her, not even noticing that the sticky feeling of the Aether disappeared as it sunk into their skins as the link was formed. 

Duke immediately felt his strength returning as they stilled against the wall and he rested his forehead against hers, both of them panting for breath. He was the first to realize that they were still against the Aether and pulled back, still holding her up and leaned against the next wall and slid down it so that he was sitting and she was straddling his lap. Audrey knew that some part of him, if not all of him, was worried that she’d only said what she did to get him to do this and save his life, so once she was able to speak again, she leaned back just enough to look at him, sliding her hand down his cheek as she said, “I love you, Duke.”

Duke smiled brightly and leaned forward for a gentle kiss. “I love you, Audrey,” he whispered, the words coming easier this time.


	4. Chapter 4

They basked in the moment for a little while longer before they moved back over closer to the fire. When Audrey started to grab for her clothes, Duke said, “Might as well leave them off. Easier to share body heat that way.” 

Audrey tilted her head and thought for a second before nodding. “Okay, but I’m still putting my underwear back on. The dust in here is annoying.”

“Fair enough,” Duke told her. “Just keep in mind that they’re only going to last for so long and we don’t have any changes of clothes.” 

Audrey sighed in frustration, but still shook them out and put them back on anyway. She’d worry about it tomorrow. While she was doing that, Duke stoked the fire again, adding some more wood and then joining Audrey who had just sat back down next to the fire, rubbing her hands together to get warm now that they didn’t have the physical exertion to keep them warm. Duke sat down behind her and wrapped her in his arms, pulling her back against his chest as she sat between his legs. “I’ll warm what the fire can’t,” he told her with a smile. 

“What about your back?” she couldn’t help but ask. 

“I’m more used to the cold. I can handle it,” he assured her. If they were out in the open it might be a different story, but the walls of the cavern were holding in enough heat that he could manage. 

“We should probably talk about how we’re going to get out of here,” she suggested. 

“No, we need to prioritize,” Duke countered. “Survival first, escape second.” 

“Okay, so what’s the first priority?” she asked curiously. 

“Well shelter we’ve got taken care of, temporarily anyway.” 

“Why temporarily?” she asked confused. This seemed like a good enough place. 

“Because second priority is water, and unless the landscape is different here, there aren’t any sources of fresh water on this island. For now, unless I’m mistaken, there should be snow in the morning which will work, but we can’t count on that long term which means getting back to the mainland needs to be up there on the priority list.” 

Audrey blanched at that as she realized that it was a very good think that Duke had survived. She wouldn’t have even thought of that, much less have any idea where to start going about it. “How do we do that? There probably aren’t any boats laying around.” 

“I’ll have to build a raft. Building an actual boat without any tools is more of a long-term project and I doubt we’ll have time for that. A raft will be a pain in the ass in the ocean and not exactly the safest prospect, but it’ll be better than dying slowly of dehydration or trying to farm dew.” 

“But you really think we can make it from here to the mainland on a raft?” she asked worriedly, not doubting his ability to build one.

“Not easily, but yeah. I think we can. Assuming this world was basically copied from ours at some point in the distant past, I know the layout of this area and enough of the larger landmarks like mountains and such to get us that far. It would probably be best to head for Fisher’s Cove. That comes out far enough that it would only be about a mile and a half away and we could do that in half a day at most, probably less depending on the currents,” Duke considered. 

“How long do you think it’ll take us to build the raft?” she asked. She had every intention of helping, after all. Even if it was just fetching things and following instructions.

“Given the need to also gather food and such, depending on how much suitable wood we can find and how far we have to travel with it, not to mention the vines to bind it together…as big as we would need for two people and not have to worry about capsizing at the slightest provocation…a week. Maybe two,” he thought it out carefully. 

“Aren’t there a bunch of caves around Fisher’s Cove too?” Audrey added, trying to think ahead like he was. 

“Now you’re thinking,” Duke said proudly. “And yes. There are. A lot of them are too close to the surf to stay in. They end up at least partially underwater at high tide, but there are some that should be okay. Again…depending on how similar this world is to ours. The biggest problem is going to be that they’re all open front so won’t hold the heat from the fire in as well and getting ventilation in the ceiling for the smoke to go out without filling up the cave.”

“But we can build some kind of door right? Maybe even use the raft?” Audrey suggested. “Not sure what to do about the ceiling.”

“That’s a good idea for the door. We’ll have to see what’s available for the ceiling. See if we can find one that’s not too far underground so we can hopefully dig out a hole without collapsing the whole thing,” Duke told her. 

“Okay, but we’re still getting ahead of ourselves right? We still need to manage here for the next week or two,” Audrey brought them back on track. 

“Right. So first thing in the morning, we need to go up and get some snow. We’ll have to just eat it for now and let it melt in our mouths while we try to find a chunk of wood big enough to hollow out and store it down here. What I wouldn’t give for a canteen,” Duke sighed. 

“I know what you mean,” Audrey agreed. “I’m feeling parched already.” 

“Me too. If it gets too bad, I’ll bundle up and nip out to grab us some to get us through, but I’d rather not if I can help it,” Duke told her. 

“I don’t blame you there,” Audrey said with a shudder. Just walking by the narrow opening in here she got a blast of cold that she wouldn’t want again, which was why they were sitting on the opposite side of the fire from it. 

“I swear, if we get out of this, I’m never going anywhere without a full camping pack again,” Duke muttered as he tried to consider all the different things they would need to figure out. 

“I might just get one of those too,” Audrey agreed amusedly. “So that’s shelter and water figured out. What about food?” 

“I can rig up a fishing pole and I should have a few hooks in my coat pockets. They tend to collect there. Bait might be a challenge but I’ll figure something out. Other than that, there are usually at least some edible plants and roots and such that can survive winter,” Duke told her. 

“Are we sure there even /are/ fish here? Or other animals? And if so are they safe to eat with the toxicity in the air?” Audrey asked. 

“No idea, but we’ll operate on the assumption that there are because if there aren’t we’re pretty much screwed anyway. Same for if they’re safe to eat. We still have to eat,” Duke told her. 

“Yeah okay,” Audrey said miserably. She hated it here already. “So that’s food, water, shelter, and getting to the mainland. Anything else we need to talk about before we go to sleep?” 

“That should be good for the time being,” Duke told her. “Let me just build up the fire first so it’ll last. We’ll still need to get up and stoke it a few times over the course of the night, but the cold when it starts dying down should be enough to wake us up.” 

Audrey nodded and went to grab their coats to cover up with after she shook the dirt out of them and straightened up the rest of their clothes. They laid down and Duke pulled her back to his front and then they arranged the coats over them. Sleep was a long time coming for them both though as they mourned their best friend and boyfriend respectively. It didn’t help that they both felt like they were betraying him by being together so soon after he died, but they hadn’t actually had a choice. It was a matter of survival. Deep down they both knew that he would be happy that they had each other, but it was hard to see that right now around their grief. 

Over the course of the night, they woke up four times and each got up twice to stoke the fire and relieve their bladders, which Duke suggested they just use a corner for the moment and kick sand over it for the smell like cats and they’d figure something else out tomorrow. The fifth time the fire started to die down, they decided to let it and get up for the day. It was morning anyway judging by the light coming through the hole in the ceiling. They both shook their clothes off well before putting them back on and bundling up.


	5. Chapter 5

“I don’t suppose you found any other holes that we could get to the surface with in your exploring yesterday?” Duke asked hopefully. 

“No,” Audrey sighed. “A few small ones, but none big enough or low enough to reach.” 

“Okay, so we’re gonna have to go out the way we came in, but there’s still a lot of mess. Just try not to look at it and I’ll work on getting it covered up once we get out. Or you can wait here and I’ll come back and get you when it’s clear,” Duke offered suggestions. 

“I can handle it,” Audrey assured him. They had a lot to do today and she wasn’t going to be a baby and set them back by waiting here when she could be helping on the surface. 

“Okay, come on then,” Duke told her, making sure to stay between her and the mess of blood and entrails on the floor. He helped her up on the boulder from which she could easily climb out the hole. He climbed up after her and as they were eating some snow he told her, “Why don’t you start looking for big chunks of wood we can hollow out. At least two of them and remember they’ll need to fit through the doorway opening.”

“I can do that,” she said relieved that she had a job that would take her far from here. 

“You have your gun right?” he asked, willing to offer one of his if needed.

“Of course. I wasn’t going to leave it back in the cave,” she laughed and rolled her eyes. 

“Good enough. Just remember we don’t have any spare ammo, so only use it if you have to.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she nodded, glad that he’d pointed that out. 

“And please don’t get lost?” he called after her as she walked away. 

“I’m not an idiot you know?” she called back amusedly. She didn’t plan on going far if she could help it. 

Duke started looking around for a flat piece of wood he could use as a shovel of sorts and it took him a little while to find one before he jumped back in the hole with it. He used it to push all the mess around the corner the opposite direction of their cavern and then covered it up with dirt. The dirt where it happened was still tinged red from what had sunk in, so he swept dirt from other parts of that area to cover it up and then tamped it down. Once he was satisfied he went back up top and went to check on the shallow grave, glad to see it undisturbed. 

Duke took a knee beside the mound, not feeling right coming here without taking a moment to mourn his friend. He was still there when Audrey happened by in her search and stopped short. She took a deep shaky breath and asked, “Is that where…” she couldn’t quite say the words. 

“Yeah,” Duke said tightly. He’d planned to show her at their first opportunity anyway. Audrey came over and knelt next to him as the tears came to her eyes again. “I’ll give you some time,” he said sadly as he got up. “I’ll be back near the entrance to the caves working on a fishing pole.” He was more than a little hungry and could imagine that she was too. 

She just nodded, tears already flowing, as he squeezed her shoulder and walked off. Once she was alone she said, “I’m sorry Nathan. For so much. I’m sorry you died. I’m sorry that it was in vain. We couldn’t get the crystal back. We’re still going to keep trying, but…it’s not looking good. D-Duke’s here with me. He’s helping me survive while we’re trapped, and…and we’re kinda together now. I know it’s soon after you and…I’m sorry for that, but under the circumstances it was kinda necessary. Just know that I’ll always love you and I’ll always miss you. I’ll never forget you.” 

She stayed there for a few more minutes before she started looking around for some kind of grave marker. She was sure that Duke would have thought of it if he’d had time last night, but she was glad that he didn’t. She wanted to feel like she was doing something for him too. She found a large rock and had to roll it through the snow to get it in the right place and then found another small sharp rock and carved ‘Nathan’ into it. “Goodbye, Nathan,” she said sadly before returning to her search for wood. 

Duke easily found a good stick, strong enough not to break easily with just enough bend to it. The harder part was getting the line. He found a good strong vine and used his knife to cut a long piece off of. He then started pulling off extra thin strips and braided them together to make them stronger. Once he had more time on his hands when they were safe and settled somewhere, he could see about coming up with something better, maybe even carving out a reel system. For now, this would do though. Necessities first. He was about halfway through braiding the line when Audrey came back with a large round chunk of wood, clearly struggling to carry it. 

“Would this work?” she asked hopefully. 

Duke got up and went to inspect it, chipping it with his knife to make sure it wasn’t too brittle, and then used his arm to measure it against the opening of their cavern before pronouncing it good. “Perfect. I’m guessing you know how to braid, yeah?” 

“Who doesn’t?” she asked with a chuckle. 

“Okay, if you want to take over braiding this line, I’ll go find another one,” he offered. 

“There are a few of them about a ten minute walk that way,” she told him, pointing back the way she came from. 

“Sounds good,” he nodded. “And leave about an inch free at the bottom there so I can braid a hook in,” he told her, getting a nod as she started the almost relaxing work and he walked off to find another piece of wood in the direction that she indicated. 

By the time he got back almost half an hour later, being a lot slower weighted down, she had just finished the line and was collecting firewood and tossing it down the hole. “I wasn’t sure what else needed to be done right away, so I got a head start on this.”

“That’s exactly what I would have suggested,” he assured her as he took over braiding the hook on the end. “So I’m thinking the most efficient use of our time will be to take these down to the beach with us and we can work on hollowing them out while we’re waiting for fish to bite.”

Audrey resisted the urge to sigh at the prospect of lugging the things all the way to the beach, but she knew that they were needed sooner rather than later and so was food, so she just said, “That makes sense.”

“We’ll also have to wash out the water one at least and the ocean water would be best for that since salt is an antiseptic.”

“I’m afraid to ask what the second one is for,” she said, pretty sure she knew, but wanting to make sure. 

“Chamber pot,” he said bluntly. 

“That’s what I was afraid of,” she groaned. “I don’t suppose plumber is in your list of skills?” she joked. 

“It is actually and if I had tools and some piping, I could probably work something out, but…” he shrugged helplessly. 

“Yeah, I know. We’re roughing it,” she sighed. 

“I’ll take the heavier one,” he told her as he finished up wrapping the line around the stick and stabbing the hook into it for ease of carrying and he stuck it in the back of his jacket as he picked up the bigger chunk of wood. They would be much lighter once they were hollowed out thankfully and he was hopeful they could get that done by the end of the day. 

As they got near Nathan’s grave he had her put down the wood and made a detour. “I’m gonna warn you that this might shock you a bit and seem kind of cold, but survival is more important than sentiment right now.”

“We are /not/ using Nathan’s body for…”

“No, of course not,” Duke cut her off, not even wanting to know how she was planning to finish that sentence, but it was probably something along the lines of fishing bait and while it would be useful for that, not even survival could make him that cold-hearted. “His clothes and stuff though…any extra fabric could be the difference between life and death. They need to be washed first though so…”

“So we’re taking them with us,” she said understandingly. “I hate it, but I get that it’s necessary. I do appreciate the warning though,” she told him as he walked over to a tree and pulled out the bundle, stopping at the grave-marker, running his hand over the name carved there with a sad look. Duke didn’t even think about asking her to carry them and just set them on top of his stump when they got back to the path and continued on to the beach.


	6. Chapter 6

As they were walking, Duke was keeping an eye out for edible flora and pointed out a few things that they stopped to gather and could munch on until they got some fish. They were going on twenty four hours hungry now and while they /could/ go much longer without food, if they could avoid it they would. They stuffed the leaves and even bark and roots in pockets before continuing their journey and it was about midday by the time they got to the beach. 

Once they were there, Duke started by going through Nathan’s pockets, not having done that before. He handed the badge to Audrey once he rinsed it off. It was somewhat smashed, but he thought that she might want it as a keepsake, and she gave him a sad, grateful smile as she took it. He found a second knife which he was glad off and rinsed that off before handing it to Audrey too. The wallet was set aside for the moment and he also came up with a few more fishing hooks and some loose change that was useless now, but he rinsed it and put it in his pocket anyway. Never knew what they might find some use for at some point. If nothing else, he might figure out a way to melt it down at some point to make some more knives or other tools. That was a very future project though. 

Audrey was taking each piece of clothing once the pockets were empty and putting them in the water to rinse them. She wasn’t about to let Duke do /all/ of the work, no matter how sick this made her. When they were done with the clothes, they got them laid out on the beach to dry and Duke unwound the fishing line and cast it into the water without bait for now. It would be harder to catch anything that way, but not impossible. The first fish he caught he would either go ahead and gut and use the entrails for bait or cut up the fish itself for bait depending on how big it was and then they should be good from there. 

When the line was cast, he sat down cross-legged, and wedged the pole partially under one of his legs with the other foot over top of it so he would know when he had a bite without losing the pole in the process. He noticed Audrey already snacking on the ‘food’ they’d collected, scrunching up her face at the taste and he chuckled at her as he started emptying his own pockets to snack. He still hadn’t caught anything by the time their hunger was sated enough that they didn’t really want to stomach anymore of the not so tasty cuisine so they started carving out the wood, Duke showing her the easiest way to go about it by going with the grain of the wood. He knew that by the time they were done with this and cleaning the fish they would hopefully catch, he would need to find an adequate rock to sharpen the knives on, but that was a later problem. 

It was about twenty minutes before he got his first bite and got up to reel it in, using his arm to wrap the line around, trusting the layers of denim to protect his skin from any damage. He was more than glad that the fish ended up being big enough at about ten inches long that they could keep the good parts to eat. He quickly cut the belly open and dumped the entrails in the sand, setting the fish aside while he cut off a chunk to put on the hook for bait. Once he had it cast again, he handed the line to Audrey. “Hold this and just give a yell if there’s a bite,” he told her. 

“What are you gonna do?” she asked curiously. 

“Find a snow bank to make a meat locker out of to store them until we head back. I’ll show you how once we get back since we’ll need one there too,” he explained as he took the fish and headed for the treeline. It was relatively easy to find a good spot and he took to packing the snow tightly around the edges and hollowing it out, leaving a hole just big enough for his hand to put fish through and then grabbing a large leaf and a few sticks to secure over the hole to keep more of the cold in. He was just finishing that when Audrey yelled that there was a bite and he ran back, showing her the best way to ‘reel in’ the line without an actual reel system. 

Audrey watched everything carefully, determined to be more help from now on. She decided that they could work on a second pole for her once they were in their cave for the night so she could help next time. For today there was plenty else to do. Once he got the fish in, a slightly larger one this time, he added the entrails to the pile and handed the fish to Audrey who ran it up to their makeshift cooler. He had the line back in the water by the time she got back and was cutting up the rest of the entrails into bait sized pieces, having piled the wood chips from the barrels into a loose bowl of sorts to hold them. “So what kind of fish are we catching?” she asked. 

“I have no idea,” he chuckled. “I’ve never seen anything like them before. Life must have evolved differently here. Judging by the teeth, I would guess they might be loosely related to piranha, but that’s all I’ve got.”

“And we have to go across this water in a raft?” Audrey paled significantly. 

“On the bright side, if we fall in we’d probably be dead anyway from hypothermia so it’s really not that much more dangerous.”

“That’s not particularly helpful,” she said dryly before remembering something else. “I’ve seen videos of piranha jumping out of the water to get at people in boats…”

“I doubt these can do that. If you look at the way their bodies are shaped, they’re not really equipped for it and I’m sure we would have seen them doing it out there by now if they could,” he assured her. He decided not to mention that it was probably the blood from washing the clothes that attracted them in the first place and wondered if they would catch a different kind of fish in the future. 

Duke had just finished cutting up the entrails and started back on the barrel when he got another bite and Audrey asked if she could try reeling this one in so Duke handed off the pole and coached her through it. Once it was in, he wouldn’t let her take it off the hook. “Let me show you how to do it to avoid the teeth first,” he told her, pinching the sides of the mouth. “Make sure you keep good pressure here to keep them from closing their jaws with one hand as you work the hook out. Those teeth are sharp.” He showed her the cut on his thumb where he’d caught himself on the first one. 

Once he got it off, he showed her where to cut the belly open and once again spilled the entrails in the sand and then she ran the fish up to the cold box while he recast the line and then started cutting up the entrails again. When she got back she asked, “How long will the fish stay good for?” 

“As long as it stays cold enough, about a week. I’d say five days though to be on the safe side so I want to get enough to last that long so we can work on the raft the rest of the time,” he told her as he got back to carving out the barrel. 

“That makes sense. And next time we’ll have a second pole so I can help, right?” 

“Sure thing,” he agreed. “Once we have the basics we’ll have more time for extras. If I’d realized how well they’d be biting I would have made a second one this time so we could be done quicker.” 

“That’s okay. We’ve still got the barrels to work on in the meantime for today so I’m not completely useless.”

By the time they had the twenty five fish Duke wanted, they were just finishing up the barrels. They were crude and could probably stand to be sanded down if they had the materials for it, but they were good enough. They washed out the bigger one in the water, making sure to stay shallow enough that the fish wouldn’t get them. Duke took off his second layer shirt to wrap around his hands to scrub so he wouldn’t get splinters while Audrey just gave the other one a quick rinse. 

“I would suggest if you want to wash anything of your clothes, you do it now before we head back. Just leave at least one layer dry for the walk and we’ll hang all the wet stuff up by the fire tonight,” Duke told her.

Audrey nodded and took off everything, including her underwear and socks and then put her coat back on. She had taken it off while rinsing the barrel so it was still dry and went all the way down to her knees. Duke chuckled and took everything off but his lowermost long sleeve shirt on top and debated on whether to wash his jeans or his thermals first before deciding to get the bloody jeans taken care of. Unlike Audrey, he washed his coat too since that was the bloodiest thing he had.


	7. Chapter 7

All of the clean clothes went in the water barrel which Duke carried back, fishing pole wrapped up and stuck inside with them. The fish and all the entrail chunks went in the chamber pot for the walk. They were still lighter than they had been before though. They were more than a little cold on the walk back, but they walked fast enough to help at least somewhat. Once they got back to the opening in the ground, the first priority was to make another ‘cold box’ and Duke showed a shivering Audrey how to make it, glad that it was simple enough that he didn’t have to slow down during his explanation. 

They decided to use Nathan’s thin undershirt to wrap the entrails for bait in and keep them separate from the fish for them to eat as they stuffed everything in quickly, keeping three fish for them to cook tonight. Duke sent Audrey in with the clothes after checking that she’d thrown enough firewood down that with what they had left over from last night should keep them. While she was taking the clothes to dump on the floor of the cave for the moment before bringing the barrel back to fill with snow, Duke was looking for the right kind of wood he would need to actually cook the fish. He finally found a big enough, flat enough piece of bark to fit on top of the longer forked stick over the fire and tossed them down as Audrey got back with the barrel. As difficult as it had been getting it down, getting it back up was simple. She just had to put it on the boulder before climbing up herself and then handing it up to Duke. 

“Go ahead and start lugging the firewood while I get this filled up and bring it down. It’ll be a lot heavier filled with snow,” he told her as he handed her the other, now empty barrel too. That would also keep her out of the wind since she was wearing even less than him and was completely bare from her knees to her shoes. She was headed back with the last armload of wood by the time he had the barrel topped off with snow. He pushed the barrel to the edge of the hole and then climbed down onto the boulder. He almost fell once he had it in hand but managed to steady himself by plopping down on his butt onto the boulder, hugging the barrel to his chest. Once he had calmed the adrenaline down, he turned to set the barrel down next to him and hopped down to the ground and got it the rest of the way without incident. 

When he got it lugged into their home cavern, he set it in the corner opposite where she set the waste barrel and chuckled at her trying to rub two sticks together. “It’s not going to work like that,” he told her. 

“What am I doing wrong?” she asked curiously, taking the criticism well. 

“First, you need something highly flammable at the bottom to get it to spark. For now, a lock of hair would be best. The rest is easier to show than tell. I’ve seen it done, but never actually done it myself so it’ll probably take a bit of practice for both of us. We’re a little too hungry and cold to worry about tonight though, so…” he pulled his lighter out of his pocket after making sure that none of the cooking ‘utensils’ were in the pile she made, and got it lit. While it was spreading and heating up, he grabbed one of the fish and handed her the other one. “We’ll want to do this on the opposite side of the fire from where we sleep. It’s all but impossible to keep all the scales in one place.” 

He knew that he could put her to work doing other things, but she needed to know how to clean a fish anyway and the sooner he could get dinner started the better. He showed her how to remove the scales first and then the bones and then slice them into thin fillets. By then the snow was mushy enough that he could wash them adequately by just getting a handful and splashing it over, not wanting to put the fish in their drinking water of course. She followed along with her own fish and he did the third one himself while she started laying out the wet clothes neatly so they would dry easier, using the rocks around the edges of the ‘room’ for the heaviest stuff and then what was left was just laid out on the floor in between the scale area and the sleeping area. 

By the time she was finished with that, Duke was laying out all the filets neatly on the flat piece of bark and set that on the forked stick and he held it over the fire. “How long is it going to take to cook that way?” she asked, both from hunger and from worry that his arms would get tired. 

“Not sure. Never cooked it this way before,” Duke told her. 

“If you need me to take over holding it for a while, just let me know,” she offered. 

“I will,” he agreed. “Actually, if you want to grab it now for a few minutes, I’ll pull the cord to start your fishing line and you can be braiding that while they cook,” he suggested and she gladly took over, raising it up when he told her it was too low. They didn’t want the cooking implements to catch on fire. It only took him about ten minutes to get the cord pulled from the vine and he tied the initial knot around the stick for the pole and got the braid started for her before he took back over. “Looks like it won’t be too long,” he told her as he flipped the filets over, using the pads of his fingers to keep from burning himself any more than necessary and then using another small stick to get them back into place. He’d cut them thin for a reason. 

“I really hope there’s a better way to do that once we have the basics taken care of,” she half-asked hopefully. 

“There is. Once we have a semi-permanent place on the mainland, I’ll be able to make a real fire pit and build up a little cooking hutch over it and even a hanger for a stew pot,” he told her as he put the fish back over the fire to cook the other side. 

“Okay. That’s good then,” she said relieved. “We can deal with this in the meantime then.” 

By the time the fish was done, the line Audrey was braiding was ready for the hook and it was set aside as they dug into their meal with gusto. They ate their fill and still had enough left over for a small breakfast in the morning and Duke set it aside, still on the bark plate, finding an out of the way place for it. Once they had used their hands to drink plenty of water…well mush currently, but it would be water later, they started sweeping up as much of the bones, scales, heads, and other fish debris as they could get and threw it in the waste bucket before using it themselves. Since they wouldn’t be in the cave much if at all during the day, they decided they would just take it up top and empty it every morning. 

While Duke was braiding the hook onto Audrey’s fishing line, she bit her lip before asking something that had been on her mind all day. Normally this was the sort of subject she would leave and let it sort itself out, but doing that after Colorado had apparently backfired, so she went for it. “Duke?” 

“Hmm?” he asked distractedly, focusing on his work. 

“How come you haven’t kissed me or anything at all today?” she asked. She knew they’d been busy, but surely just a quick kiss between tasks or a brief touch or something wouldn’t have been too much. 

Duke looked up at her as he finished and said, “I wasn’t sure how much you wanted this to be right now, so soon after…you know. I was trying to give you space.” 

Audrey sighed, glad that she’d asked. She’d thought about it a lot all day, so she had her thoughts in order on the subject at least so she went over to sit next to him as he leaned her wrapped pole on the wall next to his and she reached out and took his hand, threading their fingers together. “Yeah, part of me feels like I’m betraying Nathan by loving you and it probably will for a while, but that’s nothing new for me. I’ve always felt like I was betraying him by loving you and sure it’s a little stronger now with all this, but…”

“He never thought it was a betrayal,” Duke cut in. 

“What do you mean?” she asked confused. 

“He knew that we loved each other and he didn’t mind it.”

“How do you know?” 

“He found out that I loved you during the barn incident when I was fighting him to make him let you go. He asked point blank and I couldn’t lie to him,” Duke shrugged. “I don’t know how long he knew that you loved me but I found out not long after you became Mara. He said that the three things you loved the most were him, me, and helping people with the troubles. He just said it so simply, like it didn’t even matter, that I didn’t think much of it at the time and just put it out of my mind, but now…”

“Then that makes me even more sure,” Audrey said with a smile and a surge of love for her lost boyfriend. “I’ll always love him and I’ll always miss him, and if we were still back home then yeah, I would probably take some time to mourn him, but right now…where we are now…I just…I can’t handle all this alone, you know?”

“You won’t be alone either way, Audrey,” Duke assured her gently, reaching a hand to her cheek. “I’m not going anywhere. If you need time, then take it.”

“I know, Duke,” she said with a sad smile as she leaned into his touch. “But I don’t mean a friend. I just…I don’t really know how to put it into words, but…”

“Yeah, I think I get it,” Duke said softly, shifting around so that he could take her in his arms and he could almost feel the tension fall off of her as she laid her head on his shoulder.


	8. Chapter 8

“I think he would be glad that I still have you,” she whispered. She had to believe that at least. 

“I think so too,” Duke agreed. “And he would probably threaten to come back and haunt me if I don’t treat you right.”

Audrey chuckled and sniffled at the same time, blinking the tears from her eyes. “Yeah, you’re probably right. And if anyone could find a way to pull that off he could.”

“I don’t doubt it for a minute,” Duke said with a sad amusement before getting serious again. “And I want you to know, that it doesn’t bother me that you still love him too. Or that you’ll always love him. And anytime you want to talk about him, don’t let this whole thing with us make you feel weird about it, okay?”

“Okay. It’s just…still a little too raw right now, you know?” she said shakily. “But the same goes for you. I know he was your best friend.” 

“Yeah. He was,” Duke sighed sadly. “But not tonight.” It was still a little too raw for him too. 

They both took a few minutes to stare into the fire in remembrance before they shook of their sad moods and Duke reached his hand to Audrey’s chin, tilting her head up to look at him before leaning down for a soft kiss. When he felt her smile as she kissed him back, he deepened it and she opened eagerly for him as they took their time exploring every nook and cranny of each other’s mouths. 

When Audrey’s hands started to undo the buttons on Duke’s shirt he laid her back on the ground and moved over top of her, sliding his lips down her neck as he undid the larger and fewer buttons on her coat, letting it fall open to her bare body. When she pushed his shirt off his shoulders, he sat up long enough to remove it and she slid her arms out of her coat but left it there so she was laying on it instead of the dirt floor and then he was back on top of her and she could feel his hard length pressing against her core through his thermal pants and she hated that they were in the way. 

When she tried to press them down, he caught her hands and raised them slowly back up, pinning them above her head as he sucked on the sweet spot behind and under her ear. “Not yet, sweetheart. This time I’m going to enjoy you thoroughly first,” he drawled huskily, making her shiver in anticipation. He let her hands go so that he could trail his over every inch of her body as his lips worked slowly down. Her hands immediately busied themselves mapping every inch of him too as he rocked his hips against her damp core and her hips quickly joined his slow teasing rhythm. 

She let out a moan and one hand tangled in his hair as his lips wrapped around her nipple, flicking it with his tongue as he sucked it into his mouth and his hand caressed her other breast. He gave it a good while before he switched and she was starting to wonder if he planned to get her off just like this, but then finally he was moving again, pressing sloppy open mouth kisses to her stomach and sides and she whimpered at the loss of him pressed against her and she felt more than heard his chuckle against her skin. 

He kissed down her hip as his fingers replaced his bulge, sliding through her folds, but not actually entering her, no matter how much she squirmed. He flicked his thumb over her clit a few times as he kissed his way down her thigh and then finally slid two fingers deep into her as he licked and sucked his way back up her inner thigh and he arched up off the ground with a gasp. He kept his fingers sliding slowly in and out even as his mouth reached his prize, and his tongue slid through her folds, lapping up the moisture there. Her hand tangled in his short hair and she gave a lustful moan as he sucked her clit into his mouth, flicking it with his tongue as his fingers teased over her g-spot. Before she could get too close he switched and his thumb was rubbing circles on her clit as his tongue thrust into her and then out and then around and back in, the tip of it rolling over her g-spot with each movement. “God…Duke…d-don’t stop…please…” she panted out. 

Duke could tell she was right on the edge so he complied and even sped up, adding more of a roll to his tongue as he did and it wasn’t long before she was crying out his name as her orgasm washed over her. When he felt her walls clenching around his tongue he gave a rumbling moan that went straight through her and he very nearly came right then and there completely untouched. He moved slowly back up her body, giving her a chance to recover, but she had other ideas and when she nudged him to flip over he definitely wasn’t going to say no. 

Audrey straddled his lap, rolling her hips over his still clothed and leaking erection as she sucked his earlobe into her mouth, grazing it with her teeth. “My turn,” she purred into his ear as she kissed and licked and sucked her way down his neck. 

“God…Audrey…I’m already dying here…” he all but begged.

She did have /some/ mercy and didn’t drag out her explorations as long as he had as her lips moved on to his chest, tracing her tongue over the chiseled muscles. She reached down to slide his pants down and he lifted his hips to let her and then kicked them off. Before he got more than just the hint of her wet pussy sliding over his length she continued moving down and he let out a whimper. Audrey reached down and wrapped her hand around his cock, hard as steel by now and throbbing, and she stroked slowly as her lips moved down over his stomach and he thrust up into her hand. His hand tangled in her hair, trying to speed her up, but that just made her slow down so he relented and let her set the pace. 

Audrey ran her tongue over his V and then kissed and hipped his right hipbone, barely brushing her lips over his shaft as she moved to the left. “Fuck…please…Audrey,” he begged shamelessly, and she rewarded him by swirling her tongue around the head of his cock, getting a good taste of the pre-cum coated there before wrapping her lips around and giving a hard suck to just the head as her hand moved more firmly along the shaft. She dipped her tongue into the slit and then around one more time, sucking all the while, before her lips followed her hand back down and it was all he could do not to just thrust up into her warm mouth. She worked him slowly for a few minutes before her tongue pressed firmly against the large vein underneath and she bobbed her head, taking him as deeply as she could. “Oh…fuck…so close…” he panted out, hand tightening in her hair as he fought the urge to start thrusting down her throat and then her tongue found the sweet spot and rolled against it and he gave a gasping moan as he fell over the edge, cum spurting into her mouth. 

Audrey couldn’t help but choke a bit at first, but then she was right back sucking him through the waves as the cum kept flowing. Once it was over, she moved to start licking up what she’d spilled, taking her time and moved slowly back up, taking a little more time to explore now that his immediate need was sated. By the time she made it back up his chest and her core settled back over his slowly growing again length, he flipped them back over, kissing her deeply and letting their tastes mingle in their mouths. Lips and hands roamed freely for a few minutes until he was ready again and then without warning the angle of his hips changed and he slipped inside her, not changing his rhythm at all and she clutched at his back as she arched up off the ground. 

Duke’s hands slid into hers, pressing them back against the ground above her head, threading their fingers together as he kissed her deeply, sliding his cock slowly in and out of her tightness. As his lips returned to her neck, his hands released hers and slid down her arms, one continuing down her side to her hip and the other brushing over her face. She lifted her head to press a line of kisses over his shoulder and then the hand on her hip slid up her back and he was sitting up, leaning back on his knees as his arm held her with him. He pulled his forehead to hers for a long moment as they moved slowly and whispered, “I love you, Audrey.”

“I love you too, Duke,” she whispered back, leaning forward to kiss him tenderly as his hand slid through her hair and over her cheek and neck. His lips trailed down her collarbone and as he sucked her breast into his mouth, she leaned back to give him better access, fully trusting his arm around her back not to let her fall. They both sped up the pace as their lust pushed them higher and eventually Duke was laying her back down, driving hard and fast into her as they chased the edge and fell over it at the same moment.


	9. Chapter 9

Duke rolled to the side, only half on top of the coat, as they both tried to catch their breath. Once they did, Duke groaned and started to sit up. “I need to stoke the fire and get it built up before we lay down and flip the clothes.”

“I’ll get the clothes,” Audrey offered, getting up herself so it halved the time they were up. She was glad that her thin silk underwear were clean by now. She knew that she would have to give them up eventually, but she wasn’t going to until she had no choice. 

Once they were laying back down, under only one coat tonight since Duke’s wasn’t dry yet, Audrey snuggled back against his chest. It was a few minutes before Duke asked, “Audrey?” hoping that she wasn’t asleep yet. 

“Hmm?” she asked comfortably. 

“How long are we…’good’ for? I mean…before we have to start being careful of buns in the oven and all?” 

“About another four a half years,” she chuckled. 

“That long?” Duke asked surprised and a little confused. 

“When the mist went up and things really started going to hell, we knew that we weren’t getting any more help or supplies from the outside. Birth control was one of those things that became a priority. All the long term birth control that the hospital and doctor’s offices had in stock went to any critical personnel who wanted it first, including me. I have an implant in my arm good for five years,” she explained. 

“And you’re sure it’ll work the same since you’re not quite human?” Duke had to ask.

“The pill did and it’s based on the same hormones so there’s no reason it wouldn’t,” she shrugged. “It has so far anyway.” 

“Okay. That’s good then,” Duke said relieved. The last thing they needed in this situation was a baby. 

When they woke up the next morning, Duke checked the fish to make sure it was still good before they ate and this time he kept the fire going. “I’m gonna do up some fish to take with us for lunch today too before we get started,” he told her when she looked at him questioningly. 

“Okay, and I was thinking…I know we said survival before escape, but…I have an idea that might get us out of here soon.”

“Well we’ve got what we need to survive for a little while at least so it’s a good time,” Duke said encouragingly. 

“I was thinking about the possibility of a new barn. It could travel between worlds. We could make it here and then head home and use it there to take away the troubles like we planned,” Audrey suggested. 

“Okay, so what do we need to do that and how long will it take?” Duke asked, very much liking that idea. 

“I’m not really sure. Charlotte never got around to explaining that much. It seemed like she expected that once we found the crystal, everything would be clear, but…I have no idea,” Audrey sighed. 

“Then why bring it up?” he asked curiously. “I would know even less about where to start than you would.”

“I know, but it dawned on me last night that we also had the Aether Core too, so maybe those two things together could do something?” 

“Why are you beating around the bush so much?” Duke asked, trying not to get impatient. “Just tell me what you need to tell me?”

Audrey sighed, able to see his frustration. She just didn’t want him to think that she wanted to get out of the work. “It’s going to take me a day to make an Aether Core…if I can do it at all.” Charlotte had helped a lot last time, so she wasn’t sure if she would be able to do it alone and didn’t want to get his hopes up. 

“Okay, is there anything I can do to help?” Duke asked, seeing the need to make that a priority now that they had the basics covered. 

“Stay out of the way?” she asked amusedly. “It needs a lot of concentration and no distractions at all.” 

“Okay. I’ll use today to scout the area and find materials for the raft and do what I can there in case this doesn’t work out,” he agreed. “Will you be working in here?” 

“No, there’s not enough Aether in here for it. I saw another cavern when I was exploring the other day that had a lot more and should be enough,” she told him. 

“Just leave me a trail so I can find you if there’s an emergency?” 

“I can do that,” she agreed. “It’s not that I don’t want to help with the hard stuff, it’s just…”

“No, I get it. This is our best chance of escape right now, so you do whatever you need to do,” Duke assured her as they finished their breakfast. Before they could get dressed though, Duke motioned for her to wait. He grabbed Nathan’s flannel and dipped it in the water bucket and handed it to her. “If you want to wash up a bit. It’ll still be a little cold, but being near the fire all night it shouldn’t be /too/ bad and once we’re done I’m gonna go dump it and refill it anyway.”

“That sounds amazing,” she said relieved and gladly took it from him and started washing off. 

He handed her the sweater to dry off once she was done and told her, “I can take care of things here if you want to go ahead and get started on your thingy. I’ll leave your lunch in the same place we left breakfast if you manage to take a break to eat it.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind?” she asked hopefully as she started pulling her clothes on while Duke washed himself off. 

“Not in the slightest. I’ll handle the domestic stuff. You go take care of our escape,” he joked. 

“In that case…” she grinned and gave him a lingering kiss before heading out, revising her pebble path from before as she went to leave him a trail. 

Duke took the waste bucket up first and found an out of the way place to dump it and then the half full water bucket and filled it back up with snow, from a different area of course, and left it at the entrance for now while he pulled out two fish and cleaned and fileted them. Since it was daytime this time, he did it outside and used the snow on the ground to clean them off before taking them and the barrel back inside. It took a little longer to cook the fish this time since the fire was smaller, but he didn’t want to get it going all the way when no one would be there for the rest of the day. It would be a waste of resources. 

Once it was done, he wrapped his portion up in his clean undershirt that he’d left off for this reason and put it in his pocket and then took off to do his scouting. He found the motherlode around midday and sat down on one of the fallen trees to eat his lunch while he tried to make a plan. There had apparently been some kind of storm at some point and upended dozens of trees. There were a mix of a few different types, but as he perused the area and did some counting, he narrowed it down to pine and cedar. Cedar would float better but would require more work to get them ready due to the nature of the bark. They would also be lighter though, so easier to drag the two miles to the right area of the beach. On the other hand, the pine would be quicker and easier to work and the resin from the pine trees would come in handy during the building process. 

Once he was done eating, he started pacing off both types of trees. He knew that finding them exactly the same length would never happen and he didn’t really have any way to chop them down. A pocketknife wasn’t exactly up to that kind of job. Still the closer he could get them the better. Neither of the options stood out particularly in that area either, so he decided to just discuss the pros and cons with Audrey and let her help him decide. It wasn’t like he could move any of them on his own anyway. It would definitely be a two person job. And a hard two person job at that no matter which way they sliced it. 

His primary task for the day done, he made note of the location and started on secondary tasks. He headed back to start collecting firewood for the night and tossing it down the hole, moving it to their cavern once he had plenty and then returned to the surface. After a few minutes thought, he headed back to where they found the wood for their barrels and found another smaller piece, only about two feet high and started carving it out. Since he had time, if they had another barrel just for washing that would be preferable. It would limit the freezing walks back to the cave for sure. 

By the time he finished that, the sun was starting to set and the temperature was dropping so he quickly filled it up with snow and after a moment’s thought grabbed two more smaller chunks of wood about the size of his forearms along with the three fish to set on top as he went down. He had left the lighter behind so wasn’t particularly surprised to find the fire already going and Audrey clearly trying to warm up. “I was starting to get worried,” she admitted as he came in. “What’s that?” 

“Well I got my scouting done and had some time to kill so I made us another barrel just for washing,” he told her. “Grabbed these in case we get bored in here and we can make cups or something from them,” he showed her the two smaller pieces. 

“Smart,” she said with a satisfied nod. She hated using her dirty hands to get their drinking water.


	10. Chapter 10

“So how did your day go?” he asked, actually hoping that everything he’d done today would be made obsolete by her day. 

“Well I got the Aether core, but I didn’t want to try and do anything until you got back, just in case. I’ve only been back about twenty minutes myself,” she told him. 

“Okay, how about we have dinner first before trying to play with interdimensional construction?” he chuckled. 

“I was actually thinking that it might be better to wait until tomorrow and work on it outside. That way if something goes wrong we don’t end up destroying our safe zone or worse, end up buried under the rubble of these caves,” Audrey told him. 

“That…is a very good idea,” Duke said with a shudder, kicking himself for not having thought of that himself. He had let the prospect of escape make him reckless and he was glad that she was thinking at least. “I got so involved with the new barrel that I didn’t get a chance to clean the fish up top, so you want to help?” 

“Of course,” she told him, moving to the side of the cavern that they’d set aside for that, near the doorway. She was still slower than him so he got both of the other fish done by the time she finished the first, but she hadn’t needed any help or prompting this time so she still considered it a win. She would get better at it. Unless they managed to get home and she didn’t have to. Then again, she might just keep up on the skills she was learning here even at home. Never knew when they could come in handy. 

They used the new wash barrel to clean the fish and then their hands, despite the fact that it was still mostly snow and Duke got them set up on the bark plate and over the now roaring fire. Audrey used the opportunity while he was cooking to start sharpening their knives on the adequate rock that Duke had found for the purpose. His in particular, after carving out an extra barrel, was getting rather dull. Duke decided it was the perfect opportunity to bring up the dilemma with the raft and explained the pros and cons of each of the types of trees they could use. 

“I…have what might be a weird and uncomfortable suggestion,” Audrey said hesitantly. 

“What about this situation /isn’t/ weird and uncomfortable?” Duke snorted. 

“Point. But…I know that you usually need troubled blood to transform. Since it changed though have you tried bringing it out with your own blood?” If he could get that much extra strength it would be a no-brainer. 

“You mean like, cut myself like I’m going to be using another trouble but focus on mine instead?” Duke asked thoughtfully. “No I haven’t tried that, but…” He turned over the idea in his head. “My transformation only lasts a few minutes at best. It would take a /lot/ of bleeding to get even /one/ of those logs moved and it’s hard enough managing everything with the cut that’s already on my hand.”

“Right. Yeah. I didn’t think of that,” Audrey said with a wince. “Was just an absent thought.”

“No, it’s good. Keep the thoughts coming. Even if it won’t work it might give us other ideas and if we get stuck somewhere along the way that could be an option to help out…if it works,” Duke told her as he pulled the fish off to flip them over. 

“How is your hand?” she asked. He never said anything about it so it was easy for her to forget. 

“It’s not too bad. It’s healing up well. I’ve been putting what I’m pretty sure is a medicinal plant under the wrapping while we’ve been out and about,” he told her. 

“You’re /pretty sure/ it’s a medicinal plant?” she asked worriedly. 

“Nothing here is exactly like back home. All the plants are different, but most of them are at least similar so I’m drawing conclusions,” he shrugged. 

“How are you so good at all this?” she asked in awe. “I mean the fishing and all that I get, but the medicinal plants, building a raft, making barrels, all of it.”

Duke winced at the prospect of telling her but knew that she deserved an answer. Hell, he’d told Mara all about it, so telling Audrey should be so much easier. “I’ve been surviving on my own since I was eight years old. Before I got good enough at stealing, I had to find other ways and the public library was free, so I read and learned as I went.” 

“Why were you on your own?” Audrey asked gently, seeing that he was uncomfortable with the subject. 

“You know my dad died and they were about to put me in foster care when my mom showed up to take custody, but that’s all she did. She just signed the papers and then the only time I ever saw her was the day the welfare checks came and she was there to pick it up. Never even left me enough for food or anything,” Duke shrugged. 

“So you learned to survive,” she said sadly, moving over to hug him tightly as he pulled the finished fish off the fire. 

He smiled and hugged her back, pressing a kiss to her head before letting go and sitting down to eat. She knew that she shouldn’t, but still had to ask, “Is that part of what Mara used against you?” She had dropped it before in the wake of the more serious problem, but that did still bother her. 

“Yeah, that was a lot of it. She blackmailed the story out of me when we needed the information to get Nathan back from the ghostly plane or whatever it was, and then she fed my abandonment and rejection issues and wedged her way in,” Duke said distastefully. 

“How? I mean…what exactly happened?” 

Duke got why she felt the need to know. After everything that Mara had done and everything that he knew about her and he still fell for it, and with them together now, it was a sensitive situation. That didn’t make it easier to talk about, but he did it anyway. “She took everything that was going on a spun a reasonable narrative that ‘proved’ that you all considered me expendable and only cared about me as far as using me. She used my fear of the CDC locking us all up like experiments, me and her especially given our unique connections to the troubles, to get me to go on the run with her.” 

“So…when Dwight told you that he was telling Charlotte everything…”

“After trying to use me and the Gull as a scapegoat for the virus,” Duke added. 

“Yeah, I can see where she could spin that,” Audrey said with a wince. “But you know it’s not true right? You’ve never been expendable to any of us. Me especially.” 

“I know. But at the time…”

“It seemed reasonable. I get it,” she nodded, trying to put herself in his shoes. “So you were on the run…”

“And I was getting sicker and sicker, needing to release a trouble, but I didn’t have any more safe ones to let out. She promised that she could fix me, but I didn’t believe her at first. Then one morning I woke up and she was gone. Had picked the cuffs and taken off. I was freaking out, but then she came back. With groceries.”

“And that fed just enough of the trust that you were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt,” Audrey understood. Mara truly was a master manipulator. 

“Exactly. The problem was that she needed Aether to fix me she said, so I called Nathan and asked him for just one piece. So that she could fix me.”

“And he said no, which she spun as him not caring if you died,” she guessed. 

“He didn’t just say no,” Duke told her. “He wouldn’t even hear me out and just dismissed everything I said like it didn’t matter. I get now that he was just worried about you being sick and all, but…”

“That’s still no excuse,” Audrey chimed in. “I’m sorry he didn’t listen. I can’t say that I would have let her get her hands on the Aether either, but we could have at least tried to find a way.” 

“Then the coup de gras…when it got to the point of no return, she coached me into letting out a trouble that turned our safe house into an oven. We were both getting cooked. I told her to leave. To save herself.”

“But she didn’t. And used that to convince you that she really cared and she was the only one that did,” Audrey sighed. 

“That was when we slept together. And then she took off for real, cut off her freaking toe and sent it to me, and then called me to gloat. Told me that everyone would always abandon me just like my mother did because I was worthless and…” 

Audrey cut him off with a kiss. “You are /not/ worthless, Duke Crocker. Not in the slightest, and anyone who can’t see how amazing you are is an idiot. She’s the worthless one. Her and your bitch of a mother.” 

Duke swallowed heavily, the vehemence behind her words helping more than the words themselves and the first of the cracks to his psyche started the healing process. He pulled her close and pressed his lips to the top of her head, just breathing her in as tears pricked his eyes, but he didn’t let them fall. It was a long moment before he spoke and she seemed to understand his need for silence at the moment because she let it lay. Finally he said, voice rough with emotion, “I love you, Audrey.” 

“I love you too, Duke,” she whispered sincerely. “Always. No matter what.” 

“Always,” he agreed, blinking the tears from his eyes and letting her go, kissing her tenderly. “What say we start on making our cups?” 

She got what he was doing, needing some distance from the difficult emotions, so she let him. “Yeah. It’ll be nice to have cups.” She grabbed one of the pieces of wood and tossed him the other and they leaned against the back wall, shoulder to shoulder as they worked. Audrey understood more now how Duke could have fallen for Mara’s games and she couldn’t blame him anymore. She got now what Mara had meant when she’d bragged about breaking him to turn him into a trouble bomb. She resolved to fix him though. No matter how long it took. They had forever now after all.


	11. Chapter 11

The next morning, they finished the leftover fish for breakfast and let the fire die down in hopes that they would be leaving today. If not, missing lunch wouldn’t be the worst part of the day. They did take all the barrels up and empty them, but held off on refilling while Audrey gripped the Aether Core in one hand and the crystal in the other just /willed/ something to happen. When Agent Howard appeared, they both instinctively drew their guns that they still kept with them for emergencies despite not having had to use them yet. “Why have you brought me here?” Howard said emotionlessly. 

“You’re alive,” Duke said suspiciously, looking between him and the crystal that had glowed. 

“Apparently,” he replied. 

“What are you?” Audrey asked.

“The controller,” Howard said simply. 

“For the barn?” she asked, wondering if they were going to end up playing twenty questions. 

“Yes, I am the controller for the correctional facility created to rehabilitate Mara.” 

“But the barn was destroyed,” she pointed out, hoping that he could help her create a new one. 

“I am…keenly aware of that. It disintegrated when I was shot,” he told them. 

“Can you help us?” she asked hopefully showing him the Aether Core. “Can you use this to build a new barn?” 

“That core will supply the power, but I can’t build the barn now. Not for you,” he told her bluntly. 

“What about for me?” Duke jumped in. 

“The original barn was designed for Mara. To build a new one, I need proper authorization.”

“I’m giving you the authorization,” Audrey said impatiently. 

“You are Audrey Parker. You’re an overlay personality. I can’t take orders from you. Or from a human,” he added before Duke could say anything.

“Then what /can/ you do?” Duke asked irritated. 

“At this point the only thing my programming will allow me to do is initiate another cycle and dispense another overlay personality,” Howard told them. 

“No, that’s not an option,” Duke said harshly. 

“And I’m not an overlay anymore,” Audrey told him. “Mara was terminated. Charlotte made me whole.”

“How can that be possible? Overlays were designed to be temporary. A means to an end to help redeem Mara,” Howard argued. 

Duke and Audrey both knew that their only chance was convincing this…program…that Audrey wasn’t an overlay anymore, so Duke stayed out of it and let Audrey handle it. “She realized that Mara couldn’t be redeemed. She chose me because…because I was the daughter that she always wanted.” 

“I will need to confirm this with her,” Howard said. 

“You can’t,” Audrey said sadly. “She…died. Croatoan killed her.” 

“Croatoan? He is here?” Howard asked worriedly. 

“No. He’s on Earth. We’re in the void,” Duke told him. 

Howard tilted his head as he tried to process this new information and then turned to scrutinize Audrey. “I /can/ see something more to you. I will believe you on this matter. But it changes nothing. I still cannot build a barn.”

Duke threw his hands up in defeat and started to pace while Audrey sighed heavily. “Why not?” 

“Because I was heavily damaged in the destruction of the original barn. My programming was corrupted and I don’t have the ability to serve as a controller anymore,” he explained. 

“Okay then one of us can do it,” Duke said hopefully, despite suspecting that it wouldn’t be nearly so easy. 

“That would not be possible,” he said regretfully. “You are both connected to the Aether, you through your trouble, her through her blood. Neither of you are able to serve. Perhaps someone else though…”

“There is no one else,” Audrey said frustrated. “We’re the only ones here in the void.”

“If you can return to your world…”

“Which is what we need the barn for,” Duke snapped. 

“I see…then it seems we are at an impasse,” Howard told them. 

Duke took a few deep breaths for calm, pushing away the disappointment and dealing with the situation as it was. He was good at that. “Okay, so you can’t help us get home, but can you help us survive here?” 

“I do not understand the question,” Howard said.

“Can you help us build things by hand, move things, what kind of skills do you have…I mean you are corporeal, so…” 

“My programming is not equipped for such things,” Howard explained. 

“What /is/ your programming equipped for…that you can /still/ do?” Audrey asked. 

“The various positions I have been programmed with, primarily military and law enforcement, as well as general information.”

“Don’t military have to follow orders and get their hands dirty?” Duke asked, trying to weasel around the programming directives. Had he been human it probably would have succeeded. Though, if he’d been human he probably would have helped them anyway. Computer programs didn’t have the same freedom though. 

“Not at the levels I was programmed with,” Howard told him. “I was programmed to /give/ the orders not to follow them.” 

“So basically, you’re useless then. Great,” Duke scoffed. “I’m gonna go ahead and start refilling our barrels,” he told Audrey, needing something to do to keep himself busy. 

“Hang on…you said general information right? Do you have any information about the void? Maybe open thinnys?”

“I have a small selection of information about the void. Thinnys are not included since they were all presumably closed.” 

“Okay, then just tell me what you do have,” Audrey sighed.

“The atmosphere has a higher level of toxins than the worlds that it connects. Humans cannot survive here for long…which begs the question…”

“I linked us together,” Audrey told him, leaving it at that. 

“That should not allow him to function so well. He would not be able to die due to the connection, but he would be ill,” Howard said thoughtfully.

“Well I don’t know, but he seems fine,” Audrey looked back worriedly at where Duke was filling barrels with snow. 

“The only explanation is that you somehow transformed him fully into one of your people,” Howard told her. “The power that would have taken though…”

“Well we were practically bathing in the Aether when we linked,” Audrey admitted. 

“That would provide the raw power, but the catalyst would have to be just as strong.”

“What catalyst?” she asked curiously. 

“Love.” 

“Oh,” Audrey blushed. “Well…yeah…that was pretty strong too. /Is/ pretty strong.” 

“I see…”

“Does that change anything? With the barn and stuff?” she asked, a small spark of hope forming. 

“It does not,” Howard shook his head. “Save for connecting him even more to the Aether and making him even less suitable than he already was.” 

“Okay, then what else can you tell me about the void,” she shook that thought off and got back on target. 

“It was created as a copy of the two worlds many thousands of years ago when Earth was seeded with intelligent life to form a gateway between the mirror worlds. The toxins in the atmosphere were introduced when the gateway was corrupted and any authorized traffic between the worlds ceased. That is where my knowledge on the matter stops.”

“Then you don’t know anything about how life here has evolved? We know at least some of it is different from Earth.” 

“I would not know. Study of the void was prohibited after the corruption due to the inherent dangers and any who dared were executed or banished into the void and all of their work destroyed,” Howard told her. 

“My family…they had rings to allow us passage through the void,” she pointed out. 

“Yes. Your family were the original caretakers of Earth and were permitted to keep that right with the understanding that it would not be used save for emergencies. When it was abused by Mara, there was much discussion about whether her mother would be permitted keep hers, but it was decided that it may be necessary to correct the balance caused by the incident. 

“But Mara still had hers though. The overlay personalities did I mean,” she said confused. 

“Yes. She avoided having it confiscated by keeping it hidden on Earth, presumably having it passed on to her future personalities by trusted associates each time. Since the overlays were not a problem and were only temporary anyway, the council saw no need to risk sending anyone to retrieve it.” 

Audrey was about to ask more questions, but then noticed Duke starting to collect firewood, not wanting to go far apparently, and she realized there were more important things than general questions. “Can I call you back out later to talk more? If you can’t help us here, we have a lot of work to do.”

“You may,” Howard nodded. “And I do wish I could be of more help.”

“But you can’t go against your programming. I know,” she sighed. When he disappeared she headed back into their cave to put the Aether core and the crystal back before going to help Duke. 

“You get anything else useful?” he asked hopefully. 

“Not very, but I did find out that this world was copied from Earth thousands of years ago, so aside from continental drift and stuff the layout should be the same despite life evolving differently, so that’s at least a little bit useful,” she shrugged. 

“That’s something at least,” Duke admitted. “Come on. We should get started moving trees since we’re not going anywhere.” He’d already gotten both of the water barrels filed and inside along with the empty waste barrel and there was plenty of firewood tossed down the hole by now.


	12. Chapter 12

Duke led Audrey to the spot with all the down trees. “So I made this up. It’s kinda like a harness to make it easier to move them. We’ll just have to tie the vines around each tree and pull,” he explained showing her the branches he’d rigged. “One side for each of us.”

“Okay, so how about we try it with the biggest pine tree you want to move first and make sure we can do it. If we can, we’ll use those, if not we’ll switch to the lighter ones,” Audrey suggested. 

“We could do that,” Duke told her. “But it would involve a little extra and potentially unnecessary work. We need to strip off the still attached branches before we move them.”

Audrey considered that before shrugging. “Either way we could end up with unnecessary work with stripping down the cedar bark, so we might was well give it a shot.” 

“Fair enough,” Duke nodded and led her over to the biggest of the pine trees he’d paced off and they got to work breaking off the branches and then using the knives to smooth the spot where they were. “We don’t need them completely smooth. Just enough that they’re not going to get snagged on everything we drag them over.” 

“Makes sense,” Audrey agreed, starting on the other side of the tree. Another bonus to the pine trees was that there weren’t as many branches, though the branches were thicker and more difficult to break. Some of the bigger ones took both of them to do even after digging divots with their knives. 

It took almost two hours for that to be finished and Duke presented another choice. “We can either try and drag them through the woods the short way, which will involve quite a bit of maneuvering around the other trees and possibilities of getting stuck, though scouting ahead and marking a path should at least reduce that…or we can get them to the nearest beach which is much closer and then walk all the way around.”

“Well the sand would offer less resistance too,” Audrey considered. 

“But would also limit our ability to travel at higher tides,” Duke pointed out. 

“I say we go the beach way, and while the tide is high, we work on the branches and move what we can while we can,” Audrey suggested. 

“That was my thinking too,” Duke agreed as he went over to hook the harness to the right end of the broken tree, but before they started moving it, they scouted ahead. The beach was only about a hundred yards in that direction so it wasn’t too difficult to find a path to move the thirty foot tree through. It would have been a nightmare getting through two miles of forest though. 

By the time they got it to the beach, Audrey was tempted to suggest just building it here and floating it around the island. Then she remembered the carnivorous fish and decided that there was no point tempting fate. It wasn’t like she was any stranger to hard work and surviving here was going to take a lot of that. They had to stop for breaks every twenty minutes, including heading into the woods to get some snow to ‘drink’ at each rest stop. Even with the cold they were sweating and both of them had their coats draped over the naked tree. It took them four hours to get it where Duke needed it, and far enough back from the water that they wouldn’t have to worry about losing it to high tide, and they both all but collapsed on the tree to catch their breath once they got it there. “How many of these things do we need?” Audrey asked wearily. 

“Fifteen,” Duke told her. “I’m wanting at least thirty feet on each side to help us balance through the waves. Otherwise, there’s too much risk of getting knocked over.” 

“Which would be a very bad thing,” she said with a shudder. If she had to choose, she wasn’t sure which way she would rahter die. Hypothermia, drowning, or carnivorous fish. She thought for a minute as she said, “Okay, so at this rate we’re looking at moving two per day, tides permitting, so it’ll be a week just to get them here.” 

“And the tide’s already starting to come in so we’re not going to get another one today. I say we head back to the cave and make up some lunch and then spend the rest of the day cleaning branches so we can take full advantage of the tides and get two of them tomorrow.” 

“That sounds like a plan,” Audrey agreed, most importantly to the lunch part. The potential to miss lunch hadn’t seemed like such a big deal before. They’d all missed meals often. They’d worked up a big appetite though. 

They worked together to clean and fillet the fish, doing three instead of the usual two for lunch, and while Duke was baking them over the fire, Audrey started pulling in the firewood that he’d dropped down earlier. No point in sitting around idle. They also drank quite a bit of their water before heading back out. They managed to get two more trees stripped down before the sun started to set and they had to rush back before the cold got them. 

Since they’d finished all three fish for lunch, Duke did four for dinner so they would still have enough left over for a small breakfast. He did a quick count of what was left and realized that they were running low and would need another fishing trip soon. With the heavier work they were eating more than he’d anticipated. With any luck they could get ahead on the trees tomorrow and could spare a high tide afternoon to do a little fishing the next day. 

For the first time since they’d gotten there, they didn’t make love that night. They were both just too exhausted and sore. Audrey more so than Duke since he was more used to heavy lifting, but Duke was still feeling it. The next morning, they made a decision and cut strips from Nathan’s thick flannel shirt to wrap their blistered hands and Duke showed Audrey how to find the medicinal plants. They even took some of their breaks to soak their hands in the surf of the ocean to help them heal faster. Duke was just glad that his cut was nearly healed by now because that on top of it would be a nightmare. 

One of the breaks was also spent wolfing down the fish Duke had cooked that morning for their lunch. They were about halfway through moving the second tree by that point, so they were making good time at least and made it there just in time for high tide to hit. They went the quick way back through the woods to get to the rest of the trees and worked as fast as they could to get the branches off. They were more practiced by now, but also in more pain so it balanced out and they were no slower or faster than the previous day. 

Unfortunately, they didn’t end up getting ahead and still only managed to get two trees done, which meant they would fall behind when restocking the fish since they cooked up the last of it for dinner. Neither of them were complaining about the easy day though. They appreciated the break. There wasn’t even anything else that they needed to do and could really get done while they were fishing. They both quickly noticed that they were catching different fish this time and Duke suspected that they were now getting the fish that scattered when the mean ones came for the blood before. 

With two of them fishing and as well as they were biting, it only took them a few hours to get the forty fish that Duke wanted. That would give them enough for two for breakfast and three for lunch and dinner instead of the one two two they’d had going at first. They got them all moved back to the storage outside the cave and Duke let Audrey do the cleaning and fileting while he collected some more firewood and then she moved it from the entrance into their little cave while he did the cooking. The relaxing morning had them both easily refreshed and ready to get back to work and since they started earlier, they managed to get four trees stripped this time and they were almost halfway there for that part and even managed to have enough energy to enjoy each other that night. 

The next morning, as they got back to the trees, Audrey asked, “Isn’t it shorter if we go the other way around the beach?” 

“Technically, yes, but remember there are cliffs over there and while the downhill part would be nice…”

“Yeah, I’m not dragging this thing uphill. You’re right,” Audrey didn’t need him to finish that thought. She didn’t even think they /could/ get it uphill. It was hard enough to drag flat. After the first one, she did have another idea though. “Hey, these things float right?” 

“Yeah, but we can’t really get into the water far enough to float it around as cold as it is,” Duke pointed out. 

“No, I know, but we’ve got these vine ropes. Why not just drag it into the water and then we can stand on the shore and pull it around?” 

Duke blinked at her in shock for almost a full minute before bursting into laughter. “We’re idiots.”

“So you think it’ll work?” she couldn’t help but laugh with him. 

“I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t. It’ll be annoying with the starts and stops as the waves beach it before taking it back, but I’ll take annoying over backbreaking any day.”


	13. Chapter 13

The new method with the trees ended up being more annoying than Duke anticipated when they kept getting stuck on the shore after coming in at the wrong angle and they kept having to push them back out and they didn’t end up saving any time that way due to the constant corrections, but it was still much easier physically and since it didn’t add time, they stayed with it. It did change their schedule though since they could work through high too…and easier. That meant that low tide was spent cleaning them and they started moving them once the tide started coming up. 

By the next time they needed a fishing day, there were enough logs that Duke could make a start on the raftbuilding part while Audrey took care of the fishing. He pulled some of the longest and strongest vines he could find and took them back and started digging the divots into the wood to tie them into. It was delicate work, having to keep the gaps to a minimum and sealing it all together with the pine resin. It was a pain trying to get the resin off his hands and by the time he did, his hands were half frozen from the icy water, but he got them warmed up over the fire for lunch. 

It only took two more days after that for all of the trees to be moved and they were both more than glad of that fact and now the real work could begin. Duke didn’t really trust Audrey to carve the gaps for the vines, but he found enough else for her to do between collecting vines, restocking the cave with firewood so he could keep working, and getting her making paddles for them. While they only really needed two paddles, he was making sure they had four. There was a phrase for ‘up the creek without a paddle’ for a reason and if one of them got dropped he didn’t even want to think about how bad that would be. 

After the first day, he’d stopped making lunch for them too so she would have something to do by going back to make it herself and just bringing him his. He knew how she wanted to stay busy and hated lazing around while he was working. By the time he ran out of other things for her to do, he was almost done with the raft. It was getting late though so they would need to wait until morning to get ready to go. He had her start tying off a long vine to the two front corners for a pull line while he finished tying off the ends and then she helped him go over it looking for any spots that needed to be sealed with the resin before they headed back to their cave for the last time. 

“You know…I might actually miss this place. Is that insane?” Audrey asked as they worked on the fish for both dinner and breakfast. 

“We’re both gonna be missing it if we can’t find a place fast when we get to the mainland,” Duke chuckled. 

“How hard is that going to be?” she asked, needing to be prepared for what was coming. 

“That’s gonna depend on a lot of things,” Duke told her. “Discounting differences from our world…finding an unoccupied cave at this time of year shouldn’t be particularly difficult. The ones near the coast are generally occupied by bats and this time of year they’re hibernating so they’ll be congregated more into groups leaving the rest of their caves vacant. Finding one with a vent in the ceiling will be a lot more difficult and it’s not likely we’ll have time to make one before nightfall.”

“Which means what exactly?” 

“We’ll have to put the fire near the mouth of the open cave and lose a crapload of heat. We won’t freeze to death, but it’ll still be pretty damn cold.”

“But we’ll survive though,” she said, trying to remind herself of that fact. 

“Yeah. We’ll survive. But don’t expect the place we stay the first night to become permanent. It might take a while to find a /good/ place. And we might have to fight for it.”

“Fight for it?” she asked worriedly. 

“Bears, wolves, anything else that might be living in there,” Duke told her. 

“It’s a good thing we haven’t wasted any of our ammo then,” Audrey sighed with relief. 

“We might need to waste a couple bullets to get a hole started in the ceiling if it’s soft enough, but we should still have enough. All three of the guns are full. We just need to wait for the /right/ cave to start fighting for it.” 

“Makes sense,” Audrey nodded as the fish finished cooking and they sat down to eat. “So what all are we taking with us? The barrels I’m guessing and the cups.”

“That and the fishing poles, spare clothes, knives, lighter, and so on,” he told her. They’d been practicing lighting a fire without the lighter, but neither of them were particularly good at it yet. Duke was just glad that he’d recently filled up the lighter before they got into this so it should last for months still at least. They had plenty of time to get better. “There’s no point taking the cooking stick and plate. We can find better or even use one of the raft paddles. We’ll take the rest of the fish too, so we’ll be able to eat when we get there. I’ll wrap them up in one of the spare shirts.” 

One good thing about all this happening in winter. Everyone layered. He would still be glad when they got to the mainland and could hunt things with fur that could make blankets and wraps or even coats if they could figure out a way to sew them which would be around the middle of the priority list. Their current clothes would only hold up for so long with daily wear. That and even for him, fish for every meal was getting old. They needed some variety, even if fruits and vegetables would end up having to wait until spring. 

They knew that the next few days at least would be difficult so they spent a nice long time enjoying each other that night before they fell asleep safe and comfortable for what was probably the last time for a while. The next morning, they ate while they got everything organized and then cleaned up before dumping the wash barrel over what was left of the fire. The clothes, cups, and lighter were packed into it, fishing poles sticking up out of it before Audrey remembered and grabbed the Aether Core and the Control Crystal and added them in. The guns and knives were staying on their persons, and Audrey took that up while Duke took the still half full water barrel. They would add some more snow to it once they got to the beach but they wanted some actual ‘water’ for the journey so they weren’t going to dump it yet. 

Audrey wrapped up the fish in the shirt and put them on top of the rest of the stuff in the wash barrel and then started taking the water barrel towards the beach while Duke went back down to get the waste barrel, dump it and then put the wash barrel on top of it and took them both. Once they got there, Duke pulled the raft down to the water’s edge, pushing it about halfway in and they started putting everything on it. “We’re gonna put everything in the center for now, including the spare paddles. It’s going to be a rough ride until we get out past the breakers and we don’t want to lose it from the edges.”

“How do we make sure we don’t lose ourselves from the edges?” Audrey asked worriedly, knowing that they would have to be paddling for dear life to keep the waves from bringing them right back to shore which meant being at the edges. 

“This,” Duke said holding up a vine and tossing her one end. “Tie it around your waist good and secure.” Once she did that he motioned her up on the raft and had her stand about a foot from one side while he stood a foot from the other side and tied it around his waist so there was no slack between them. “There. Now neither of us should be able to fall unless the other moves towards the center.” 

“So make sure we keep our feet planted well then,” Audrey nodded. 

“And your knees bent and loose to compensate for the motion. Just like when you’re on a boat, but even more so,” he told her. They made sure that the spare paddles were securely wedged between the barrels in the center of the raft and then they sat down. “It’s probably gonna take a while for the water to get up high enough to lift us, but it’s either wait for it or push the raft out and then jump on it, which isn’t really an option as cold as this water is.” 

“Yeah, I’ll vote against that option too,” Audrey chuckled. 

“Once we start to lift, we’ll use the paddles to push us off. You go ahead and set whatever rhythm you’re comfortable with and I’ll match you,” he told her, knowing that he had more practice, strength, and reach so it would be easier for him to adjust to her than the other way around. He also planned to take care of most of the navigation part himself by either speeding up or slowing down his pace as needed. All he wanted her worried about was paddling and not falling. “Oh and I’d suggest staying sitting until we get past the breakers. We’ll get a little wetter that way, but less risk of falling in.” 

“Okay,” Audrey said seriously, psyching herself up for this. “Anything else?” 

“I’ll let you know if I think of something,” he said amusedly.


	14. Chapter 14

It took about an hour for the water to come up high enough to lift the raft and they both pushed off with their paddles. It took a few waves for them to get deep enough to keep moving and Audrey started paddling frantically. “Easy there,” Duke chuckled. “Slow and steady.” 

Audrey slowed down to a more normal pace and said, “I thought we wanted to get out of the breakers as quick as we could?”

“We do, but we’re not going to get anywhere that way,” he told her amusedly. “You have to give it a chance to create drag to move us along.” 

Audrey nodded in understanding and Duke matched her pace. They were still pushed back with each wave, but they were moving more between them. A few waves broke over the front of the raft, splashing them, but they were far enough back that they didn’t get drenched. The one empty barrel fell over at one point and Duke caught it on his foot before it could roll off and just left it there for the time being. The other two barrels had enough weight that they wobbled a bit, but didn’t fall. 

It ended up taking them over an hour to get out past the breakers but from there it was smooth sailing. They were glad that it was a nice day. For winter in Maine that was. There were no storms upsetting the ocean at least. In fact, they’d been pretty lucky in that respect since they got there. Most of the precipitation that came down did so at night while they were inside. Not that they hadn’t been caught in a few snow flurries, but it hadn’t gotten too heavy and there hadn’t been any sleet or hail, so that was a plus. 

Once they were on the smoother water, Duke suggested that they try and stand. He found it more natural that way. She started to get up and then shook her head and plopped right back down. “Nah, I’m good.” 

Duke rolled his eyes, but sat back down himself. He supposed he could handle it for one trip. He did take a moment to put the waste bucket back in the center of the raft though before returning to rowing. The current seemed to be on their side today thankfully and made their job much easier so they made it to shore only two hours after they’d pushed off. Literally half the time had been spent in the first two hundred yards. At least that gave them time to find a place to hunker down for the night, even if they were already wet and freezing. 

Once the wave that washed them up on shore receded, Duke jumped off, grabbed the pull line and dragged the raft as quick as he could out of range of the water coming back. Audrey didn’t even have a chance to get off and yelped in surprise when she was yanked. “Sorry,” Duke laughed. “Wanted to get out of the way fast.” 

Once they were out of danger, he stopped pulling long enough for Audrey to get off. Now that they didn’t have the wet slippery sand helping, it was much harder to pull and it took the two of them twenty minutes to heave it far enough that the high tide wouldn’t take it. “We can just leave everything here for now while we do some scouting,” he suggested. 

“Are you sure it’s safe? We don’t know what kind of animals or even monsters might be roaming around here.”

“And if there are, and we run across them, the last thing we need is to be weighted down,” he pointed out. He did stop and grab the lighter though. Everything else in there they could replace or survive without. 

“Point,” Audrey admitted before grabbing the Aether core and control crystal to put in her own pockets. Risking Howard just didn’t seem right, even if he was a computer program. 

Once they got to the first of the caves, Duke asked, “How do you feel about bats?” 

“Not a fan,” she said honestly. 

“Then you might want to wait here while I check it out.”

“You’ll be okay?” she asked worriedly. 

“If they’re in there they’re hibernating so as long as I don’t make too much noise there shouldn’t be a problem,” he told her and she nodded. It wasn’t until the third one that they found an empty one, but Duke decided it wasn’t suitable if they could find something better. Eight caves later and they hadn’t. And were out of caves that wouldn’t be underwater at least some of the time. “So we have a choice. We can either head further inland and see what we can find or pick one to hunker down in for now and do some more looking tomorrow.”

Audrey considered that for a minute. Tomorrow she could be dry, but probably not much warmer since they’d be freezing all night, but she could also have a full stomach too. In the end, she decided, “We still have half the day left. I say we keep looking for now. If we haven’t found anything better in a couple hours, we’ll come back.”

“Good enough,” he agreed. That was his preferred option too. He’d only offered for her sake in case she was too tired, cold, or hungry to keep going. Duke led them around the hills. “The best place to find caves are at the base of the hills. Unless we get lucky and run across another underground cavern system, but that’s not particularly likely.” 

“You don’t think there are any around?” she asked confused. If there was one on the island shouldn’t there at least be a chance of some here too. 

“Oh I’m sure there are. But that doesn’t mean we’d be able to find them,” he pointed out. “Unless we happen to find a caved in section like the other one had.”

“Right. Yeah. Good point,” she agreed. “Hey there’s one.”

Duke looked around for a few minutes before shaking his head. “Let’s skip that one for now. See those tracks there?” She nodded. “That’s the biggest bear tracks I’ve ever seen. Not in the mood to tangle with him even if his cave was the Taj Mahal.” 

It took them about an hour before they found one that was unoccupied. “This one doesn’t seem too bad,” Audrey told him, following him in after he sounded the all clear.

“It’s not much better than the ones at the beach, but it does have a few bonuses. First of them being that it opens up away from the ocean so we don’t have the ocean breeze bearing down on us,” Duke said thoughtfully as he looked up. “The ceiling is dirt not stone which means digging a hole won’t be impossible.” He stepped out and looked up, doing some figuring. “Probably about three feet to dig through. Not too bad.” Duke went to find a pointed stick and went back into the cave and found the central point and lifted the stick to try and chip at the ceiling. “Yeah I think we can work with this. A bullet to get us started wouldn’t go amiss though.” It should knock down enough to make it easier to get through. He pulled his gun and cocked it, pointing it at the ceiling and frowned when nothing happened. He checked and double checked the gun but couldn’t find anything wrong with it. 

“Is it jammed?” Audrey asked curiously taking it from him to look it over herself. 

“It shouldn’t be,” Duke said, pulling out Nathan’s gun to try. It was a smaller caliber but it should still make a difference. The same thing happened with that too. “Okay that’s too much of a coincidence. Try yours.” 

Audrey set Duke’s gun aside and tried hers only to get the same reaction. “Okay, I know getting them went can cause some problems, but they weren’t /that/ wet and all three of them?”

“Yeah, that’s not likely. Which means there’s something here preventing them from working. Maybe those toxins in the atmosphere or interference from the Aether or just that things from other worlds can’t work here at all,” Duke reasoned. 

“Either way, the guns are useless,” Audrey sighed. “Which means we might be in trouble.” 

“Nah,” Duke shook his head, wishing he felt as confident as he was trying to sound. “I can make up a bow and arrows and even some spears for hunting. We’ll manage. First thing though is making this hole the hard way.” 

“I can go start bringing stuff up from the raft and get that dragged up,” she offered. 

“No, we’ll both go. I don’t want either of us wandering around alone and defenseless. Not now that we know there are large predators nearby,” Duke said seriously. 

“Good thinking. I don’t think I could get the raft up here anyway now that I think about it.”

“I don’t think we’re going to,” Duke shook his head. “We’ll need to come up with something else for a door.” A little way up the beach with the smooth wet sand helping would be one thing, but there was no way they were getting it any farther than that. Not unless they found some beasts of burden to hook it to. Moving each of the individual trees to make it in the first place had been hard enough.


	15. Chapter 15

They both walked back to the beach and carried the stuff up the same way they’d gotten it to the raft. Audrey carried the now quarter full water barrel while Duke carried the other two barrels. After a quick water break, they got them set inside the cave and Duke picked up the pointed stick and handed it to Audrey. “Why don’t you work on the hole while I see what I can find nearby to rig a door?” 

“I thought we were supposed to stick together?” 

“I won’t leave yelling distance,” he promised. “If I don’t find anything, I’ll just start grabbing firewood and we’ll look further together later on.” 

“Okay,” she agreed hesitantly, pulling him in for a lingering kiss. “Be careful.”

“Always am,” he smirked brushing a hand down her cheek before heading out. There was a reason that he was the one volunteering to leave the cave, beyond just trying to protect her. He had secretly tested his ability to phase and found that he still could. It hadn’t been a one-time thing. Which meant that if it came down to it, he had a better chance of getting out of danger. 

He didn’t know if he still had access to any of the other troubles his family had picked up or if it was just the ones that he’d gotten after his transformation, but it wasn’t like any of the others could actually be useful in this situation, so he didn’t even bother trying. The only one that could even potentially be useful was the one that caused fear and even then it was a coin toss between the fight or flight of animals, especially predators. He could just as easily end up inciting them to attack as run away. No, he would stick with the phasing. He’d also tested to see if he could use his own blood to trigger his superstrength and that didn’t work, so as long as he was here away from any other troubled people, his only ability was phasing. 

It took him a while, but he finally found some cedar branches with enough foliage to cover the cave entrance relatively well. They wouldn’t hold in /all/ the heat but it would be enough to keep them from getting too cold. They would work for now. It would take three of them to cover the entrance but they were tall enough which was the most important part. He dragged them back and set them up in the entranceway and stopped to check on Audrey.

“I see you found us something of a door,” she chuckled. 

“It’ll be good enough for tonight. We’ll try to find something better when we have time. How’s the hole coming?” 

“Slowly,” she sighed. She was standing on the upside down waste bucket so she could reach with her knife too when she hit a clump that the stick wasn’t helping with. “How big around does it need to be?” 

“Just a couple inches is enough,” he told her. “About twice the width of that stick. I’ll go get us some firewood and then fill up the two water buckets and then I can take over for a while.” 

“I can go…”

“No, it’s fine. I’ve got it. I want to get a little more lay of the land anyway,” he told her. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him, but let him go. She’d start prying later. When there wasn’t so much work to do. They didn’t have time for arguments right now. 

Duke came in with three loads of firewood before taking the two buckets that she wasn’t standing on out. He dumped the drinking water out, it needed to be refreshed by now anyway, and started packing them both with snow, taking them back in one at a time before grabbing two more armloads of firewood. That should be enough to get them through for a little while. Once he got back, he motioned her down and hopped up to take over. “You did good. Looks like you’re about halfway there if I had to guess,” he said as he inspected it. 

“It didn’t feel like I was making much progress,” she huffed. 

“Well you did,” he assured her. “Shouldn’t take more than an hour to finish up, if you want to go ahead and start piling up the wood for the fire. Leave off any that look like they might make good arrows if there are any. And if there’s a long one springy enough for a bow.” 

“Don’t we want the fire right under the hole?” she asked. 

“It doesn’t have to be directly under it. A little to the side will be okay.” Once she was done with that, he had her get started on cleaning the last of the fish for dinner since they missed lunch. He wanted to get them started as soon as they could light the fire. He had to stop a few times and use his knife to cut some roots away from the hole which meant it ended up being a little wider than they needed, but he finally made it through the surface and shoved the stick up as high as he could and had Audrey come hold it. “I’m gonna go check up top and see where it comes out and clear the area around it.” 

Audrey couldn’t help but yelp in surprise when she felt the stick yanked out of her hand a few minutes later, and gave Duke a halfhearted glare as he grinned at her through the hole. “All clear up here, go ahead and get the fire started. The sun’s already going down.” 

The fire was catching as Duke got back into the cave and he started arranging the filets of fish on the raft paddle. The paddle was smaller than their previous option though so he ended up using two paddles and Audrey took the other one to cook. “So what’s this whole not wanting me to leave the cave thing?” she asked. 

Duke sighed. “It’s just…some of the tracks I saw out there…with nothing but a knife to protect yourself…”

“You don’t have anything more than a knife either,” she pointed out. 

“No, but I can…well…”

“You can what?” 

“It turns out…I can still phase,” he told her. “So if I get in a situation…”

“When did you figure that out?” she asked, wondering why he hadn’t told her. 

“I was testing out your theory. If I could use my own blood to activate the Crocker Curse. I can’t, but the phasing still works.” 

“What about all the other troubles you had?” she asked worriedly. 

“I don’t know. They’re not the kinds of things you wanna test, you know?” 

“Good point. But if you weren’t trying to get the phasing trouble and it still came out then there’s a chance that it’s the only one,” she tried to make him feel better. 

“Or just the most recent one,” Duke replied. “Could be either. I hope it’s the only one.” 

“Can you phase other people with you?” she asked. 

“No. Absolutely not,” Duke shook his head profusely. When she raised an eyebrow he explained. “Technically it’s possible, yeah, but this is a dangerous trouble. One tiny slip of concentration and you end up half in a gate like Haley did. Her mother died the same way. You add another person into the equation and that risk triples.” 

“Okay, so only in extreme life or death situations,” Audrey nodded understandingly. 

“No, never,” Duke said seriously. “Because those situations are the ones most likely to be distracting. There is almost zero chance of coming out of that alive. /Any/ other option would be better.” As they set the cooked fish aside, there was enough heat in the cave now for Duke to suggest, “We should get out of our wet clothes.” He was already stripping his off. Truth be told everything from the knees up was more damp by now than actually wet. The rest hadn’t had much chance to dry with the snow. Not for him anyway. Audrey had been in the cave long enough that she was at least halfway dry now, but still not enough. 

Audrey nodded and they both got their clothes arranged near enough to the fire before sitting down on the driest thing they had. Audrey leaned against Duke to share their body heat while they were eating. It wasn’t quite /that/ warm inside yet. “So, why didn’t you tell me? About the phasing thing?” 

Duke winced and twitched like he wanted to move away from her. “I…I don’t know. I guess…because Haley, and…”

Audrey sighed sadly as she got it and turned slightly, using her free hand to cup his face. “I know it hurts, Duke, and I know how much you hated it, but you did the only thing you could do. You saved her from any more suffering. You saw how much pain she was in.”

“I know,” he said hauntedly before shaking it off. “Can we talk about something else?” 

Audrey nodded, but still gave him a soft comforting kiss before returning to their food. “What’s the plan for tomorrow?” 

“Finding more food, probably fishing, making another outdoor coldbox or two, and working on some weapons,” he told her. He didn’t like leaving the cave at all right now without more than just the two knives they had, but it was that or starve tomorrow and as much of a pounding as their immune systems were taking with the cold and wet and not even having any gloves or hats, he didn’t dare let it weaken too much further. It was a miracle they hadn’t gotten sick or frostbitten yet, but maybe that had something to do with being hardier enough to survive here in the first place. Either way, there was no use taking chances. They’d just have to be careful and hope for the best.


	16. Chapter 16

Once they finished eating, they laid out the rest of the spare wet clothes and started going through the rest of the wood pile they had, separating it out into weapons and fire once Duke showed Audrey what to look for regarding the weapons. They didn’t have anything long enough to make actual spears since Duke was more looking for firewood, but arrows were doable. They even found a long piece that would make an adequate bow, but only one. They resolved to look for a second one the next day. “Why don’t you start on the arrows. They’re less complicated than the bow. Just use the sanding rock to get them straight and uniform and then sharpen one of the ends,” Duke told her. 

“What about the other end?” she asked as she grabbed the first of the arrow pile to start on it. 

“Once I have the vines set into the bow and see how thick they are, we’ll get the groove in the other end. I doubt we’re gonna find any feathers this time of year for the fletching so we’ll just have to do our best for now.” Duke started by working the ends of the bow and adding grooves to tie the vines around. 

“What are they for anyway?” Audrey asked curiously, wondering how important they could be. 

“Puts a bit of spin on the arrow and makes the trajectory more stable,” Duke explained. 

“So helpful but not crucial?” she guessed. 

“Pretty much,” he nodded. “Of course, if we do happen to run across any feathers laying around…”

“We’ll grab them,” she agreed. “What are we gonna do with the guns?”

“Might as well hold onto them,” he told her. “We can farm the gunpowder from the bullets if we need it, The guns themselves will make decent hammers for now and you never know. One day we might get around to figuring out how to make a forge to melt them down into something more useful.” 

“You think we’ll be here that long?” she asked worriedly, pausing in her sanding of the arrow. 

“I don’t see any way to get out of here, so…” Duke shrugged, focusing all his attention on the bow. 

“What about the thinny you mentioned in North Carolina?” she asked hopefully. She got staying put for now while they got weapons and other things they needed but long term?

“Okay, let’s consider that idea,” Duke told her, having already mapped the whole thing out in his head quite a while ago and discarded it. “First, the only thing I know is that it’s in Manteo, North Carolina. That’s why I was taking Mara so she could help me find it. Let’s assume for a moment that the thinny opens up here in the same place that it was there, which is a pretty big assumption from the start…how are we going to find it?”

“We could just head south until we get to the right area…” Audrey suggested weakly. She could see his point, but wasn’t quite ready to give up on their only option yet. 

“Okay, so which way is south?” Duke asked pointedly. “If we were at home, I could navigate by the stars or even use the sun to know which direction is which, but the stars are different here. I don’t recognize any of them and the sun is equally useless since I’ve been keeping track and it rises and sets in different places every day. The axis of this world rotates differently than ours meaning even the seasons can’t be predicted. I could use the layout of the land around here to /possibly/ get us /started/ in the right direction, but once we’re out of this area, we’ll be completely lost.”

“Okay, but what if…”

“And even if we could figure all that out, what about the journey? We’re talking over a thousand miles, on foot, through rough terrain, in a completely wild environment with predators galore and nothing more than spears and arrows to protect ourselves from them, not to mention the elements. The chances of finding adequate shelter, the time we’d have to take away from traveling to hunt, fish, and forage for food…”

“Then we’re trapped forever,” Audrey sighed. 

“Not necessarily,” Duke told her. “It shouldn’t be too hard for people to figure out where we are and Vince knows where the open thinny is. There’s always a chance that they could send a rescue party. And if they do, they’ll expect us to be near Haven so this is where they’ll come to look for us, and you can bet that they’ll be better equipped for that kind of journey and they’ll make note of where the thinny lets out too.” He knew that it was a long shot. Like almost nil chance, but it was still better than them trying to wander aimlessly in hopes of stumbling across it and dying in the process. 

“Haven isn’t going to last much longer if we don’t get this crystal back,” she pointed out. 

“I know,” Duke sighed, setting the bow aside to pull her close. “I know, but there’s nothing else we can do. Staying alive is the most important thing because if we die, especially lost in the wilderness…they’ll /never/ be able to find the crystal.” 

“We should have carved some kind of note into a rock on the island,” she sighed. 

“Yeah. We should have. But once we get a chance, we’ll go back and do that on the beach where we came up,” Duke promised. “If they do come looking, they’ll know that’s the closest land point and figure that’s where we would have headed. It’ll even save them from braving the ocean to get to the island in the first place.” 

“Okay,” she nodded, taking a few deep breaths for strength. “We can do that.” 

“Come on. I think we’ve got enough work done for tonight. Let’s get some sleep,” Duke coaxed. He didn’t want this conversation to go far enough for her to figure out just how unlikely it was that anyone would be coming. 

Their coats were still wet, but the flannel they were sitting on was dry enough and Nathan’s coat had been in the center of the bundle, so it was mostly dry too. They built the fire back up before they laid down, and Audrey snuggled into Duke’s arms, trying not to think about the fact that they were covered by Nathan’s coat, but it didn’t work very well. When Duke felt her tears falling on his chest, he ran his hand over her back soothingly. “You okay?” he asked gently. 

“Just…thinking about Nathan,” she admitted, remembering how he had said not to be afraid to talk to him about it. 

“Me too,” Duke said sadly. They’d mostly left his clothes alone as much as they could until now for a reason. “Did he ever tell you about the day we met?” 

“He mentioned that you’d known each other since you were five but that’s about it,” she said, hoping that he was going to share. 

“It was the first day of kindergarten,” Duke said softly, keeping his hand moving over her back as he lost himself in the memory. “Most of the kids were either hyper and excited or scared and clingy, but Nathan wasn’t. Even then he was more stoic and just kept to himself. During recess, I noticed that he was sitting on a bench alone, just watching everyone play so I went over to talk to him. He didn’t say a word and just looked at me like he was trying to figure me out so I just kept talking. Eventually he just said, ‘Do you ever stop talking?’”

Audrey gave a watery chuckle. “That sounds like Nathan alright.”

“I smirked at him and asked, ‘Do you ever talk?’ and he gave me the Nathan look. You know the one. Where he thinks you’re a complete idiot but doesn’t actually come out and say it.” 

Audrey laughed again. “I’ve gotten that one a few times. Not as often as you obviously, but it has happened,” she told him, and they stayed up for about another hour telling stories about Nathan. The first time he’d been mentioned in anything but passing. 

Eventually, Duke felt like he really should tell her what he had avoided last time they’d talked about it. “There’s something I should tell you,” he said hesitantly. 

“What?” she asked seriously, taken aback by his change of tone. 

“I wasn’t sure if I should tell you before because I didn’t want you to think that either of us saw you as some kind of prize to be passed around or anything because we don’t. That wasn’t how it was meant at all…”

“Just tell me, Duke,” she coaxed. 

“There was more than once…when he didn’t know if he was going to survive…when he knew how we felt about each other…he told me that if anything happened to him that he wanted me to take care of you and…and make you happy,” Duke admitted. “He made me promise.” 

Audrey closed her eyes against the tears and buried her face in Duke’s chest. “Just tell me that this whole thing with us isn’t…isn’t you trying to live up to that promise?” 

This had been the biggest reason that Duke hadn’t said anything before and he tightened his arms around her as he told her, “I’m not gonna lie. That does have something to do with it, but not all. Not even half. I /do/ love you Audrey. I’ve always loved you, you know that. Making you as happy as I can is something that I want to do for me just as much as for his memory.” 

Audrey took a minute to turn that over in her head before nodding and pressing a kiss to his chest. “Okay, I’m okay with that. He’s told me to take care of you a few times too, you know. I didn’t really get what he meant by it until you told me that he knew, but…I’m pretty much the same, you know? But don’t ever doubt how much I love you regardless, okay?” 

“Yeah, I get it,” Duke said softly as he pressed a kiss to her head. “He’s always going to be a part of both of us and we shouldn’t try to fight that or pretend otherwise. We should accept it and remember him for it, if you know what I mean.” He knew that he didn’t exactly put that well, not really having the words to get his point across. 

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” she told him honestly, glad that they could be so open and honest about this. He would have been well within his rights to find the subject uncomfortable or be bothered by her feelings for Nathan, and the fact that he wasn’t just made her love him even more. Just like the fact that Nathan hadn’t been bothered by the fact that she and Duke loved each other made her love him more.


	17. Chapter 17

It took Duke a moment to figure out what woke him up and why his danger senses were going off, but he didn’t move a muscle or open his eyes at first. Long habit from ending up kidnapped more than once. If your captors don’t know you’re awake it can be used to your advantage. Instead he listened and heard something moving around. Audrey was still in his arms and he was awake enough by now to remember where they were at that there were no other humans around, so he opened his eyes slowly to look around. When he saw the source of the noise, he nudged Audrey awake with one hand while the other reached for his knife. “Shh,” he said barely audible as he slipped slowly away from her. 

Audrey realized that something was wrong as he moved and reached up for her own knife even as she rolled, noticing his slow movements and copying them, to see what it was and she gasped. She saw Duke grab one of the sharpened arrows with his other hand as he got to his feet, ready to fight so she did the same. 

Once Duke noticed that she was ready too, he took the chance and called, “Hey!” to the thing. It looked like some sort of rodent…despite the fact that it was the size of a large dog, so hopefully it would react like most rodents and run away. Unfortunately, it didn’t and lunged at him, but that was why he got ready to fight first anyway. He tried to twist out of the way, but was more than a little surprised at the thing’s agility because it shifted in midair and still landed on him tackling him to the ground. He felt teeth digging into his shoulder as his knife entered the thing’s belly, but that just seemed to piss it off. 

Audrey saw Duke go down and jumped into action rushing over and bringing her knife down on the back of it’s neck at the same time the arrow in Duke’s other hand went through it’s eye and it seemed to finally die, as Duke heaved it off of himself. “Oh my god, are you okay?” Audrey asked him, trying to get a look at his shoulder as he sat up. 

“I’ll be fine,” Duke assured her with a wince. 

“Sure you will,” she rolled her eyes at the macho act. “Come here. Let’s get you cleaned up and have a look.” She grabbed one of the cotton shirts and cut it in two pieces. It was one that they could most afford to lose for clothing and she didn’t want to mix the thing’s blood that was covering part of him with his wound so they needed two. 

Duke took one of the cloths and dipped it in the wash barrel and started to clean the animal’s blood off while she did the same with the other and started on the bite to his shoulder. Once he was cleanish, he tossed the bloody rag to the side, not wanting to rinse it off in their cleaning water until they were ready to dump it. “How’s it look?” he asked Audrey who was just finished cleaning around the wound. 

“Not great, but you should live assuming we can keep it from getting infected and that thing doesn’t have any kind of venom or sickness or something,” she said worriedly. “Thankfully, I don’t think you need stitches.”

“I saw some medicinal trees out there when I was gathering stuff up so we’ll get some to put on it in the morning,” he told her. There wasn’t much more they could do than that. He took the still mostly clean shirt from her hand and cut a thick strip from it and handed it to her. “Just tie that around it as a bandage for now tight enough to stop the bleeding.”

Audrey did so before tossing the bloodier part that was left in the same spot as the one Duke used. When she moved to wash her hands, Duke stopped her. “Why not?” she asked confused. 

“I want to get a good look at that thing first so we might as well wait,” he told her heading over. “Help me roll it?” He didn’t want to aggravate his shoulder too much at least until the bleeding stopped, and he couldn’t manage with one hand. 

“Ugh it’s ugly,” Audrey shuddered. 

“It looks almost like a rat,” Duke said as he inspected it. “See the beady eyes…well…eye,” he chuckled since there was only one eye left without an arrow in it. “The blunt snout and the tail…though I’ve never seen a rat with a barbed tail like that.”

“Or that big,” she pointed out, more than a little creeped out at the idea that this could be a rat. 

“Help me get it’s mouth open?” he asked as he knelt down in front of it. 

Only the fact that he would have asked for a reason and couldn’t exactly do it himself with his shoulder messed up kept her from telling him where to shove it. She knew she would have to get over her squeamishness though. This was her life now for the foreseeable future. She reached down and pulled it’s jaws open, trying not to be too nervous when Duke laid down and put his head halfway in the mouth to look and then reached inside. 

“Okay, so we don’t have to worry about venom. The teeth are solid and there aren’t any venom sacks,” he told her as he struggled to get up. Once he was clear she let go and let the mouth fall back closed and then reached to help him up. “On the plus side we won’t have to worry about food tomorrow, but a better door just shot to the top of the priority list,” he chuckled as he headed to fix the branch that had been knocked out of the way at the rat’s entrance before joining Audrey in washing their hands. 

“We’re gonna eat that? Don’t rats carry disease?” 

“Most animals carry some sort of disease,” Duke pointed out. “And this world is different remember? If the pit bull sized rat isn’t enough of a clue,” he said amusedly. “Besides, in our world at least, most of the diseases rats carry are in their saliva or their blood, not their meat. I don’t see any obvious signs of it being sick, so it shouldn’t be any worse than any other animal we could eat.” 

“Yeah, I guess,” she said hesitantly. She just had to not think of it as a rat was all. It was a…racoon. Yeah. People ate racoons. Racoons were acceptable. But then Duke had to make it even worse. 

“And it’s big enough that it’s hide should make a decent blanket once we get it cleaned up,” he said thoughtfully before shaking his head. “Anyway, that’s to worry about in the morning. Why don’t you get some more sleep. I’ll stay up and keep watch,” he told her. It was only a few hours until morning anyway.

“You’re injured,” she shook her head. “You sleep. /I’ll/ keep watch,” she told him. “Not up for debate,” she said firmly when he opened his mouth to argue. 

“Fine,” Duke sighed, fully planning to use this against her in the future if she got so much as a stubbed toe though. “But wake me up the next time the fire goes down to switch. That can be our time-marker.”

“I can live with that,” Audrey agreed, knowing that was the best she was going to get. At least her coat was dry now since she wasn’t going to have his body heat keeping her warm and she slid it on before building the fire back up to normal as he laid down. She leaned over for a lingering kiss before going to sit with her back against the wall facing the entrance. “Will it keep you up if I sharpen the knives or start carving some more arrows?” she asked. Just sitting here staring at the walls would drive her crazy and she might as well get some work done while she was awake. 

“That’s fine,” he murmured sleepily, already starting to drift off, so Audrey checked the knives first and could tell they were getting a little dull from the near constant use so she sharpened both of those first before grabbing the pile of sticks that would become arrows to start smoothing and sharpening them. Her eyes kept straying over to the rat…coon. Racoon. That still had one of the arrows sticking out of it’s eye. She forced her mind away from the loop of terrifying what could have beens and used her normal tactic of dealing with fear. Thinking of ways to protect herself. 

The door was the first thing, like Duke had mentioned. It would keep anything else from just wandering in. That didn’t help out there though. But that’s what the arrows were for. And Duke would get the bow finished and then a second bow that she would learn how to use. And spears. They would be okay. Duke knew what to do. How to survive. And she would learn. He would teach her. She’d always thought she was good at surviving before, but that was with guns and grocery stores and stoves to cook on and all the things that they didn’t have here. If she had to be trapped, she was more glad than ever that it was with Duke.


	18. Chapter 18

As promised, Audrey woke Duke the next time the fire started dying down, but she stoked it and added some more wood as he woke up and got himself moving before they switched places. He finished up the bow and then got two more arrows done to add to her considerable pile before he noticed the sun coming up. He decided to let her sleep since she’d only slept half the night anyway, so he went ahead and washed the rags and then cleaned himself up a little better before throwing his clothes back on. 

His next task was to drag the rat outside and get started on it. He found an out of the way place that wasn’t too far from the mouth of the cave for him to hear if she called for him and started with finishing the vivisection that his knife had started in the fight and dumping the entrails. Then he removed the head and dumped the brain before he took it back inside. The rest wasn’t nearly as messy and most of the rest of it they would be keeping anyway. 

He started working on skinning it, trying to keep as much of the skin intact as he could manage, which was most of it. He wasn’t too worried about messing up the legs. Those would be scraps. He set all that aside carefully and then started cutting the meat from the bones, taking great care with the tendons, to keep them as whole as possible. They would come in handy later, but breakfast was more important right now since the thing had eaten their fish. 

That was going to be another problem, he realized. Back on the island there weren’t really any animals since there was no fresh water source there and it was a small island anyway, but here they would have to find a way to keep the animals out of their ‘coldbox’. He turned his mind over the different options as he worked. He was about halfway done rendering it down when Audrey woke up and once she was done with her morning ablutions, he put a few chunks of meat on a stick and handed it to her. “You can cook while I finish this up.” 

“I was hoping you’d teach me how to do it,” she said with a huff. 

“I’ll teach you with the next one,” he promised. “It ate our breakfast, so I wanted to get a head start.” 

“I guess that makes sense,” she admitted. “Plus we have a lot to get done today, I know.” 

“Exactly,” Duke nodded. “And we’re also going to have to find a way to store what’s left without the animals outside getting it. I have a few ideas, but I’m open to suggestions.”

“Could we build some kind of hutch or something over it?” she asked. 

“It would have to be something that couldn’t be broken as easily,” he pointed out. 

“Are there any thorny plants we could use? Make it not worth it for them?” she considered. 

“That’s an idea,” Duke nodded. He hadn’t considered that. “I’m pretty sure I saw some things out there that would work. We’ll see what we can rig up.”

“Or we could put a door in another cave and pack it with snow?” 

“I considered that one, but it’s gonna have to be later on. It’ll be more time consuming and we need to get secured here first,” he told her. “We also need to decide if we’re going to stay here for a little while or look for a better cave.” He was all for staying, but he would accept her input on the matter. 

“I say we stay here,” she told him. “It’s only about a twenty-minute walk to the beach and we’ve got the vent hole already made. Yeah it’s a little close to the big bear you mentioned, but there will probably be more anywhere we go, so there’s not really much point in moving.” 

“That’s what I was thinking too,” he nodded. 

“What if…for the door…we take the raft apart and cut the trees down to size?” she suggested. 

“With what?” he asked amusedly. “Our knives aren’t up to that kind of job and making an axe shouldn’t be /too/ difficult, but it’ll take time and is lower on the priority list.”

“Yeah, good point,” she admitted. “What were you thinking for the door then?” She knew that would be their first job of the day. 

“Same kind of thing as the raft, but with smaller pieces. We should be able to find enough thick branches around to tie them together and make the door. The hard part will be keeping it in place. If it leans too far something could knock it down,” he told her. 

“Well if we’re using branches, maybe we could leave enough on the outside to hold it up straight? Or use vines to tie off in here somehow?” she suggested. 

Duke smiled proudly. He was mostly posing these questions to her to get her thinking the right way and show her that she could be better at this than she thought. “That’s good. I say we use both options. And we can roll over a big rock for one side that will still let us open the other side enough.”

“Could we set it up to slide open instead of swing open?” she asked thoughtfully. 

Duke considered it before nodding. “That should be doable. And probably easier too. I’ll have to take another look at the outcropping around the entrance to be sure though. If we can, we won’t even need the vines. We’ll just use a couple big rocks on each side.” The mouth of the cave was only a little taller than him so as long as they could get the rocks at least waist high they wouldn’t have to worry about the top overbalancing. 

“Okay. That’ll be the plan then,” she nodded as she turned the meat over in the fire. She knew that this would take a lot longer to cook than fish. “What’s that?” she asked pointing to the stack of stringy white stuff that she just noticed that he was separating from the meat. 

“That’s the tendons. They make good string. I’m gonna use some for the bow and keep it for replacement fishing line or thread for sewing and probably other uses I’m not thinking of off the top of my head,” he told her. 

“I can see where that would come in handy,” she agreed. “And the bones for weapons and tools and stuff I’m guessing?” 

“Exactly,” Duke grinned proudly. “It’s a little more difficult to work with, so we’ll keep with the wood for now, but once we have a little more time on our hands…” 

“Makes sense,” she nodded. “I think this is done?” 

“Pull it apart and see how it looks on the inside,” he told her, not wanting to do it himself with as messy as his hands were at the moment. 

“It’s still a little pink, but not much,” she told him once she checked. 

“Go ahead and leave it on the fire a little longer then. Normally I don’t mind my meat on the rare side, but in this case…”

“I’m with you on that one,” she chuckled as she did just that. 

Another reason Duke wanted it cooked a little more was because he was almost done and wanted to finish up. It only took him a few more minutes to get it all separated and went to wash his hands as thoroughly as he could before heading back to eat. While they were eating, Duke considered the best way to handle the day before telling her, “Okay once we’re done, I’m gonna go start looking for branches for the door and you can work on emptying the barrels and refilling the water ones,” he suggested. “Then see what you can find to guard our coldbox?”

“I can do that,” she nodded. “Just don’t go too far?” 

“You either,” he told her. “We need to stay within yelling distance at least.”

“Agreed.” She was more than glad that it was winter, so the bears were hibernating. At least she hoped so. She was sure that Duke would have mentioned if they were up and around and he would have recognized the signs. As long as they avoided getting too close or intruding on their caves, they should be okay for now and hopefully by spring they would have enough weapons and would have their space secure enough. Speaking of spring… “What are we going to do about keeping the meat good once winter is over and we can’t use the snow anymore?” 

“By then we’ll have what we need to start brining it to preserve it, which is why another barrel is relatively high on the priority list. In fact, now that I think about it…that might be the best way to do it now. Then we won’t have to worry about securing our coldbox,” Duke considered for a moment which option would be easier before deciding, “Yeah let’s do another barrel instead of the coldbox.” 

“Okay, but what exactly is brining?” she asked curiously. 

“Just submerging it in salt water. Salt is a preservative, and brining seasons, tenderizes, and preserves the meat. It’ll stay good for up to a month that way, but we’ll want to change out the water once a week either way.”

“And we can get salt water right from the ocean easily,” Audrey nodded, seeing the value of that method. “And it’ll be fine staying inside with the warmth?” 

“Yep, I’ve always brined my meat just leaving it on the counter in a jar so it’s all good,” he assured her. 

“Why don’t we just use the washing barrel for this batch today and then worry about a new barrel once we have the door settled then,” she suggested. 

“That sounds like a plan,” Duke easily agreed. “We need to head to the ocean anyway to get my wound cleaned there and rebandaged and clean and cure this hide so we can use it.” 

“Okay, then we’ll do that first and /then/ start on the door,” Audrey decided, wanting to get his shoulder taken care of asap.


	19. Chapter 19

Duke and Audrey went to dump all the barrels and then Duke piled up the meat and upended the drinking water barrel over top of it. “That should at least keep the smell from attracting other animals while we’re gone,” he told her. 

“Smart,” Audrey nodded as she picked up the knee high wash barrel and Duke grabbed the hide, wrapping the scraps up inside the main chunk. “Should we build the fire back up to keep it going while we’re gone?” she asked. “To help keep the animals away?” 

“Probably wouldn’t hurt,” Duke agreed, seeing that they still had plenty of firewood, so they took a minute to do that. “Plus we’re probably going to end up relatively wet with all this so we’d be best off taking a bit to warm up afterwards.” 

Once they got to the water, they filled up the barrel first, having to get their feet wet to manage it and then the same for rinsing the hide and Duke’s bandage. They’d thought to take off their shoes so at least they would be dry and they’d brought the flannel to dry off their feet as much as possible before putting the shoes back on and then hoofing it as quick as they could manage back to the cave without spilling the water barrel. 

As soon as they got inside, they stripped off their shoes and sat with their feet facing the fire before Duke set the brining barrel between them and then handed her a few chunks of meat. “Cut them into filets…think pork chop thickness…and then toss them in the water,” he told her. They might as well make themselves useful while they were trying to ward off frostbite. He grabbed a chunk of meat to do the same and by the time it was done, their feet were nice and toasty so it was time to get the rest of their work done. 

First step was to refill the drinking water barrel with snow and then bring it back inside. They would scout out fresh water sources soon to be used once the snow was gone, but that was a problem for later. Then they set out looking for wood and vines for the door. They made sure not to get too far from each other and they stopped at one point once Duke found some good medicinal leaves and broke them up to slide under his replaced and soaked in saltwater bandage. They were so used to dragging much larger things to build the raft, so rather than make multiple trips back, they chose a central point to deposit what they found and when they were relatively sure that they had enough, they used vines to tie them into a bundle and each took an end of the approximately seven foot long branches and carried them back all at once. It was still pretty heavy, but it was easier than making multiple trips. 

Once that was all back, they went for the large boulders they’d seen and worked together to roll them back to the mouth of the cave, having to use sticks for levers more than once to get them started since they were about chest high on Audrey. They were taller than they were wide though so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. They put one on each side of the doorway and stood them back up. They would probably have to change the positioning once the door was built, but they were in roughly the right places. There was about five feet of leeway on one side of the entrance, but the other only had about a foot until it met a hill wall, so that was the side the door would open from. Five feet would be more than enough for them to get in and out, even with the barrels.

This wasn’t nearly as delicate as the raft had been since they didn’t have to worry too much about gaps and the didn’t really have time to groove the vines in. It also didn’t need to be as sturdy, so Audrey started cutting the vines into strips while Duke worked to remove most of the branches that were left and then they each took an end to start tying them together. Duke showed Audrey the best way to weave them as they went and she followed along. Once he was done with his end, he took hers over so she could run for firewood. The sun was already setting so they had to hurry. Once she had collected enough to get them through the night, they worked quickly to get the door into place and get the boulders secure enough to hold it up, but not so tight that they couldn’t slide it. 

Duke got the fire started while Audrey grabbed a few ‘steaks’ and got them set out on the paddle. “Tomorrow if we have some time we’ll get some of those bigger gaps in the door sealed up,” Duke promised. “It’ll still hold the heat a lot better than the branches from last night though.” 

“It’s good enough for now,” Audrey agreed. “We didn’t end up getting anything to make spears with though.”

“Yeah, the door took a little longer than I expected and the break to make sure our feet didn’t freeze meant that we ran out of time. That’ll be first priority for tomorrow,” he assured her. 

“Is there anything else we can get done in here for tonight?” she asked. 

“Maybe,” he said, looking through the wood they had and finding two longer thinner pieces. They weren’t quite long enough to make spears and were too long for arrows, but would be perfect for what he had in mind. “How would you like a clothesline?” he asked with a grin as he held them up triumphantly. 

Audrey snorted in amusement and nodded enthusiastically. “That would be amazing.” For one thing it would help their clothes dry faster and keep them off the dirt floor. 

Duke started sharpening one end of the sticks while she was cooking. “I know those will take longer so we can switch if your arms get tired from holding it up,” he assured her. A better method for cooking was on the list too once they had weapons covered. Really the clothesline wasn’t nearly as necessary, but it would take ten minutes. Fifteen at the most and since they had the materials now he might as well. The ends didn’t need to be particularly sharp or pretty. It was just to make it easier to get them in the ground so that only took a few minutes. 

Duke’s forty-four was the bigger gun so he used that one as a hammer. After removing all the bullets, including the one in the chamber, and the firing pin of course. Just because they didn’t work was no reason to be an idiot about it. He hammered the stick down about two feet into the ground and then made the other one level and then made a slit in the top of each of them, tied a knot in either end of one of the vine strips and settled it into the slits. 

“Here, you take this while I test it out?” Audrey asked, the paddle getting heavy in her arms. 

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” Duke told her. “Start with the hide if you would?” 

Audrey nodded and took the large animal skin and draped it over the center of the line. It sagged a little bit, but held. “I think it works,” she grinned, taking her snow damp coat off and adding it to the line followed by her much damper jeans.

Duke maneuvered his coat off switching hands with the paddle and handed it to Audrey to add and then Audrey smirked and came over to get him out of his jeans. She knelt in front of him, running her hands up his inner thighs and over his crotch, causing his breath to hitch before slowly unbuttoning them and dragging the zipper down, rubbing over his growing bulge as she did. By the time she was pushing the pants down his hips he was almost fully hard and she mouthed at his cock through his thermals. “A-Audrey…unless you want me to end up dropping our dinner in the fire…” he stammered, doing his best to keep it steady and mentally moving a freestanding cooking apparatus up the priority list. 

Audrey gave a breathy laugh as she nudged him to step out of the pants before taking them to hang them up too. “More of that after dinner then,” she promised. 

“You’re evil,” he joked as he pulled the steaks off to flip them and then moved them back over the fire while Audrey checked the other clothes to see what was still damp. She hung up the rags from the tshirt that had been used to clean up the blood and the flannel that they’d used to dry their feet that morning. Everything else she folded up and put in a free, relatively clean if you considered the floor was dirt, corner. 

By the time she was done with that, she went to take back over the paddle from Duke, but soon wished she hadn’t because he had every intention of paying her back. He smirked and moved around behind her, pressing his still half hard dick against her ass, sliding his hands around her stomach before one of them slid lower. He kissed her neck seductively as his hand slid into her underwear, fingers teasing through her folds. “Not so easy to concentrate on the food is it?” he whispered huskily in her ear as she whimpered. The hand from her stomach was quick enough to steady the paddle as it dipped since he’d been watching for it as he rubbed himself against her ass, and teased his fingers around her entrance and over her clit. 

“D-Duke, please,” she breathed out, not sure if she was asking him to stop or keep going. 

Duke chuckled, pressing one more kiss to her neck before he withdrew. “Payback, dearest,” he said amusedly as he moved around the fire to start organizing some more of the mess they’d left that morning, ignoring his erection. All this teasing would just make it even better later.


	20. Chapter 20

By the time Duke had the rest of the mess from the dead animal cleaned up and out of the way, the steaks were done and he was missing the wash barrel right about now, but they got around it by having Audrey pour water from his cup over his hands a few times while he scrubbed them and then he did the same for her before they sat down to eat. “At least the brining thing makes them taste marginally better,” Audrey said as she tried the first bite. 

“Only marginally,” Duke agreed. They still weren’t ‘good’ by any means, but it wasn’t as bad as breakfast had been. 

While they ate, Audrey decided to continue their teasing from earlier and reached over to run her free hand enticingly over his inner thigh. Not one to be outdone, he smirked at her and did the same, but took it a step further and frequently teased his fingers over her mound, feeling her underwear get wetter with each pass. That prompted her to start rubbing over his now hard cock at random intervals. 

By the time they finished eating they were both desperately turned on, but not quite ready to end the game yet. Duke leaned over for a featherlight teasing kiss before turning away and getting up to get a drink. Audrey got up to follow him and once they had quenched that thirst, Audrey moved in front of him and started unbuttoning his shirt achingly slowly. Two could play that game though, he reached out and just flicked open two buttons on her shirt deftly with one hand and let his hungry gaze trail over her partially exposed breasts. 

Audrey had no idea how his eyes could affect her just as much as his touch, but she could almost feel it as he slowly licked his lips and caught her eyes again. She was on the verge of just begging him to touch her or do /something/ already when he reached out again and slid her shirt to the side, fingers just barely brushing over the top of her breast as the shirt was moved just enough to expose her hard pink nipple. He didn’t unbutton it any further or touch her any more after that, letting his hand fall back to his side. 

She finally finished unbuttoning his shirt, but then left it there, trailing a finger lightly over his solid chest. Just one finger. Desire hung heavy in the air. So heavy that they both were losing their breath and Duke’s eyes slid back to her one mostly bare breast as it heaved with her breaths. The next time his eyes met hers, she slid slowly to her knees and his breath hitched. She could see the wetness in the front of his thermals from his precum as they stuck straight out in front of him. 

Audrey kept her eyes locked on his as a hand wrapped around the base of his rock hard shaft and then slid forward and a drop of precum soaked completely through the material and beaded at the tip. She smirked up at him as her tongue darted out to catch it. God she wanted to taste him so badly, but more than that she wanted him to break first. She could see the fire blazing in his eyes that were locked onto hers as if by some sort of spell. She knew he was close. She leaned back, sitting on her feet and moved her hand to her own breast, sliding it the rest of the way out of her shirt before doing the same with the other one, letting them rest on top of the still half buttoned shirt and then squeezed them both enticingly. 

That was the last straw for Duke who moved one hand to her cheek while the other one reached into his pants and pulled his painfully rigid cock out, taking a step forward and pulling her lips to it. She immediately opened and gave a low moan as she sucked him down and he couldn’t help but thrust into her mouth. When she choked, he forced himself to stop and she bobbed her head a few more times before letting her mouth pop off, pulling a whimper from him. 

Audrey decided to give him a hint to what she wanted. “If you want it, then you’re gonna have to take it,” she said seductively. She’d always secretly wanted to try this and now seemed like as good a time as any. 

Duke searched her eyes to be sure she was serious before his hand tightened in her hair, pulling her forward and shoving his dick past her lips and to her throat. When he felt her gagging he pulled back enough for her to get air and then thrust deeper again. Once he was sure that she was good with this he moved his other hand to the top of her head to move her with him as he fucked her throat and it was all he could do to keep his knees under him at the feeling. It wasn’t long before he thrust himself deep as he came, feeling her gagging around him, but not stopping until she tapped his leg and he immediately let go of her and let her decide how far to go. She moved back, cum dripping down her chin as the next few spurts hit her face and then her mouth was back on him again sucking at everything he spilled as he gasped for breath. 

The sight of her, on her knees, his cum dripping down her face, was hotter than he could have even imagined. And then she made it even better. Once he was spent, she sat back and used her finger to swipe up some cum and then popped it in her mouth sucking it clean and she didn’t stop until her face was clean. His brain finally rebooted enough to ask a worried, “Okay?” 

She chuckled as she slowly got to her feet. “If it wasn’t I would have tapped out sooner,” she assured him as she ran her hands up his stomach to his chest and then he yanked her in for a feverish kiss. He had every intention of returning the favor and he spun them around so that her back was pressed against the wall before moving his lips down her neck and then collarbone, one hand groping one breast as his mouth rapidly moved towards the other. His other hand slid into the back of her underwear gripping her ass. When his lips found her breast and sucked it into his mouth, she gave a gasping moan, arching her back . 

Duke’s hands switched position and he massaged the breast he was sucking on as his other hand slid down the front of her underwear, fingers sliding through her folds before he slipped one inside her and she bucked her hips forward as one hand slid into his hair. It wasn’t long before he was sliding her underwear down and dropping to his knees in front of her. He lifted her leg over his shoulder and met her eyes as two fingers slid deep inside her and his tongue flicked over her clit before he sucked it into his mouth. 

Audrey completely got now why guys loved having a woman on her knees for them. It was the hottest thing she’d ever seen. “Oh…god…” she panted, as his fingers danced against her gspot and his mouth worked her clit. “So good, Duke,” she breathed out, and only because she was looking did she see the light in his eyes and catch the hitch of breath and she realized that he might just have a praise kink so she decided to test it. “That’s it…good boy,” she whispered and he gave a low moan as he sped up, moving his tongue to take the place of his fingers, one thumb rubbing over her clit now while the other hand reached up to caress her breasts. Audrey slid her hand through his hair as he drove her higher and higher. “Yes…just like that…so good…” 

Duke’s cock was rock hard again now, still only half out of his pants as he shifted to a better angle to get his tongue deeper into her. “Mmm…that feels…amazing…” Audrey panted, rocking her hips against his face, grinding down on his tongue. “God…so perfect, Duke…” Every word from her mouth was going straight to his cock and as much as he wanted nothing more than to be inside her right now, he wanted her to cum just like this first. “Put your fingers back in me and suck my clit,” she coaxed and he wasted no time doing just that pulling a choked moan from her. “Good boy,” she breathed out, and he gave a moan of his own that reverberated right through her. “So close, Duke…so good…almost…” she gasped and his fingers slid harder and faster into her, pressing the g-spot with each stroke in perfect rhythm with his tongue rolling against her clit and she cried out, “Yes!” as her orgasm washed over her. 

Duke moved one hand down to his hard length, rubbing over it, needing some kind of friction as he felt her walls clenching around his fingers that massaged her through the wave. She slid her leg off his shoulder as she came down from the high and moved down the wall so that she was kneeling in front of him, noticing his hand on his cock. She moved to the side and got on her hands and knees. “Fuck me, Duke,” she breathed out. 

He didn’t need to be told twice and quickly moved behind her, pressing his pants down more, not wanting to waste the time to get out of them completely. He slid the head of his cock back and forth through her folds a few times before sliding slowly in, leaning down to press kisses over the back of her neck and shoulders as he rolled his hips into her. “God…yes…Duke…you feel so good…” she moaned, just driving him higher. 

“Yes…Audrey…love you…” he breathed out, still kissing her shoulders and neck as his cock slid in and out of her tight pussy. 

“Love you, Duke…so much…” she replied, meeting him stroke for stroke, but that was all the words she could manage as the passion overwhelmed them and it didn’t take long before they were both falling over the edge again.


	21. Chapter 21

Duke sat back on his knees, trying to catch her breath and Audrey sat up and leaned back against him. His arms immediately wrapped around her and he pressed his lips softly to her shoulder and they just sat like that for a good long while until they noticed the fire starting to die down. Audrey got up to get the fire first and Duke went to check the hide. “It’s not quite dry yet so we’ll have to rough it for one more night,” he told her as he grabbed their coats and stripped off the rest of his clothes. When she tossed him her shirt, he caught that easily too, and since it was all dry, he folded them up and put them in the corner where she’d put the rest of the clothes. 

“That’s okay. One more night is fine,” she told him, finishing with the fire and heading over to shake the dirt out of her underwear before putting them back on. They were getting a little threadbare with being washed and worn every day, but it was still better than sleeping in the dirt completely bare. She didn’t know how Duke could stand it, but then she remembered his childhood and wondered if he’d had to get used to it then. She wasn’t about to ask though. She didn’t want to bring up those kinds of memories. “Come here and let me check your shoulder,” she told him. There had been a reason that she’d picked the position she did. She didn’t want him to have to hold up his weight on that arm. 

Duke sat down, putting his coat under him for the moment and pulled off the bandage. “It doesn’t feel too bad,” he told her as she used a cup to wet one of the other, washed out strips of cloth and came over to clean it. 

“It was bleeding again,” she pointed out, seeing how blood-soaked the bandage was after being washed that morning. 

“I’ve been using it all day,” he chuckled. “Of course, it was bleeding again.”

Audrey sighed heavily as she wiped the blood and remnants from the medicinal leaves away. “I guess I can’t even say you shouldn’t have since we never would have gotten the door up in time otherwise. What do we need to do tomorrow?” she asked. 

“We need to find some decent spear sticks, another bow, at least one more barrel, and I want to grab a variety of different woods to work on during the evenings and see what we can do with,” Duke told her. 

“Okay, then you can leave the heavy lifting to me,” she told him. “I really don’t like the way this looks,” she said worriedly as she got it all cleaned off.”

“What’s wrong with it?” he asked, unable to actually see it himself. 

“There’s a yellow crust around the edges and it’s hot to the touch,” she told him. “You know what that means, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, it means it’s getting infected,” he sighed. “I’m not really surprised, but at least we caught it early.”

“I really hope you know of some way to treat it.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “In the first empty cave I found down by the beach one of the walls is covered in moss. I should still be okay to go with you by morning, but just in case I’m not, you’re looking for some with star shaped leaves.”

“Why didn’t we just get that in the first place since we were down there this morning?” she asked. 

“Because until we can explore and find a more plentiful source, I’d rather save it for when it’s /really/ needed. Plus, it’s not the best to use on deeper wounds like this since it’s a natural source of iodine which can have side effects if it gets too deep into the bloodstream.”

“Okay, yeah. I can see why it’s not the go-to for the side effects alone,” she nodded. Now that she knew it was iodine, she got it. 

“Still better than the infection though, so there’s that,” Duke chuckled. 

“Very true. I don’t suppose you know how to make rubbing alcohol or something? For later use at least?” 

“Not with the resources we have on hand, no,” Duke shook his head. “The only recipe I know calls for sugar and yeast.”

“I know yeast comes from grain, but I don’t think we can even get sugar this far north,” she said thoughtfully. 

“I don’t think so either,” Duke told her. “Which means iodine is gonna have to be our go to for the foreseeable future.” 

“I guess so,” she sighed as she got up to go get the third piece of cloth. She poured some more water over it and then rung it out so that it was just damp and then went to tie it around the wound. “I wish we could go get some tonight. I would feel a lot better if we could get it treated faster.” 

“I know, but it’s way too cold out there and I wouldn’t want to pick my way through those woods in the dark, not to mention we have no idea what kind of nocturnal predators there are…no, we need to stay inside until morning.”

“If you get worse though…”

“Audrey, I’m fine right now. Look,” he lifted her hand to his forehead. “I don’t even have a fever yet. The chances of me getting that bad overnight are slim. But even if I do, you have to promise me you won’t go out until morning.” 

“But if…”

“You can’t help me if you’re dead, Audrey. Promise me,” he said seriously. 

“Okay, I promise,” she said in defeat. 

“Thank you,” he said. “But I’m still gonna be fine, so stop being a worrywart and come lay down with me.” He took her hand and got up, heading over towards their sleeping area that kept the fire between them and the door. He knew that he couldn’t promise that. Back home he could have, but not here. He had no idea what kind of infections and bacteria there was here. The fact remained though that there was nothing they could do about it tonight. 

Audrey knew that she was probably overreacting. They had caught the infection early and he really wasn’t showing any symptoms yet. It was just the situation they were in made it seem so much worse. Once they were laying down, her cuddled up to his good side, she asked, “Just in case you do end up out of commission though…how do I use the moss? What if it doesn’t work? Is there anything else I can do?” 

“Just pull the moss apart and put it over the wound and then tie the moist bandage back on. Only leave it there for a few hours and if it still looks bad by the end of the day, do it again. If my fever gets too high, use a rag to wipe me down with the water from the barrel, but don’t refill it first. If it’s too cold it’ll send me into shock.”

“I know that part,” Audrey assured him. “I mean are there any other plants or medicinal stuff that I can use.” She knew how to treat a fever. 

“If you can find a Willow tree the bark is good for fever and pain. Just heat up some water with it to make a tea,” he told her. “Feverfew would also be good, but it doesn’t grow this time of year. And remember, things aren’t exactly the same here so the willows might look different.”

“Okay, I know what a willow looks like back home so I should be able to figure that out and I wouldn’t know what feverfew looks like anyway. You’ll have to show me if we find some later though,” she told him. 

“But Audrey…if you do need to go out looking…please be careful,” Duke told her, running his hand along her back and kissing her head. 

“I will. I promise,” she assured him. “Willows grow best near water right?” 

“Yeah, but not by the ocean. Rivers would be the best bet. Lakes and ponds too though,” he told her. “I wish we’d had time to do more scouting.” 

“It’ll be okay. Like you said, you should be fine anyway,” she told him, feeling better now that she knew exactly what to do and not wanting him to start getting worried too. 

“Right,” he nodded, desperately hoping that she didn’t have to go looking. He guessed that the biggest reason they hadn’t run into any other dangerous predators nearby was the hibernating bear a few caves over, but if she had to go farther all bets were off. 

They stayed up talking for a little while longer before finally falling asleep and Duke did take a turn for the worse during the night. Audrey’s first sign was when he didn’t wake up when the fire was dying down, but he was still shivering and she could feel the heat coming off him. She got up, stoked the fire, and added some more wood before checking the hide and seeing that it was dry now so she brought it back and covered them up with it. She could tell his temperature wasn’t /too/ high so she didn’t need to worry about cooling him down yet and he did wake up enough to mumble at her when she was up, so she forced herself to stay calm. She didn’t get much more sleep with her worrying though.


	22. Chapter 22

As soon as the sun came up, Audrey stoked the fire and added some more wood to keep it until she got back. She tucked the hide blanket tighter around Duke and kissed his forehead, worried that he was still getting warmer, and threw her clothes on, barely thinking to grab the rags before rushing out. She did make sure she had her knife of course, and tucked a few of the arrows in her belt just in case she ran into something unfriendly along the way. Not to mention, she might need the knife to get at the moss. She had a little trouble with the door alone, but managed to get it open enough to slip through at least and then back most of the way in place. Good enough that nothing would get in while she was gone at least. 

She jogged all the way to the beach, glad that she kept in such good shape making the mile and a half trip in ten minutes. She headed for the cave first, taking a minute to remember which one it was. She didn’t want to disturb the hibernating bats. Especially if they ended up being as vicious as the rat was. Once she got in there she realized that she had a problem. She couldn’t see well enough to make out what kind there was. Hopefully there was just the one kind, otherwise this might take a few tries. She peeled of a large chunk and headed outside where she could look more closely at it, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the tiny star-shaped leaves and she put it in her pocket and went back for more, filling up both of her pockets before heading to the water’s edge and rinsing out both of the strips of cloth, soaking them in the saltwater since the salt would be better for the wound too. 

That done, she jogged back and slipped back inside just in time to see Duke trying to sit up and she rushed over. “Shh. It’s okay. Just lay back down,” she told him, pressing his good shoulder down. 

“Where’d’y’go?” he slurred. 

“I got the moss,” she told him, pulling the blanket back enough to get at his shoulder. “It’ll be okay.” She untied the bandage and used one of the new wet ones to clean the area, wincing each time he did before she pulled out a chunk of the moss and started tearing it up to put over the wound and then used the other saltwater soaked bandage to tie it all in place. “There you go. I’m gonna go try and find a Willow tree now…”

“No,” Duke grabbed her arm. “M’not that bad,” he told her. “Moss’ll be ‘nuff” 

“You’re burning up,” she pointed out, running her hand over his sweaty forehead. 

“Only if I lose consciousness,” he told her. “M’fine until then. It’ll start get’n better soon.” 

“I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. 

“Trust me,” he said seriously. 

“Okay. For now,” she agreed. “But if you don’t start getting at least a little bit better by midday…” She didn’t want to end up trapped inside all night again with him steadily getting worse and nothing she could do. When he let go of her wrist and nodded, she started pulling the rest of the moss out of her pocket and went to put it next to the water barrel. She knew that moss needed moisture to grow and hopefully they could start a farm of sorts in here. She even used her cup to drip some water on it just in case that would help and then took a long drink herself before taking some over to Duke. “Here, have a little water,” she said gently, reaching her arm under his head to lift him up as she put the cup to his lips and helped him drink. He drank three cups full, not that the cups were that big before he said that he was good. 

Audrey stoked the fire again and when he fell back asleep, and she made sure that it was sleep not unconsciousness, she went to fight with the door to get it open enough for her to come in and out with some wood. She emptied the waste bucket first though. She stayed closer than usual in her hunt for wood, but if she was going to keep the fire going all day for him they needed more firewood at least, and if she could find some stuff for the other things he wanted she’d grab that too. 

The first armload she brought back was strictly firewood, though they might find a good piece for a second bow in there, but she wasn’t going through it right then. She got two more armloads of firewood, checking on him after each trip, before she started looking for other things. She found a few pieces that would make decent barrels and lugged them back one at a time. He’d said at least one, meaning that he would like more so she brought three of them. When she got back after the second one though she found him trying to get to his feet and rushed over. 

Before she could make him lay back down again he told her, “Need th’buck’t,” so she just helped him up and over to it, holding him steady while he peed and then helped him back over to lay back down. 

“You want a little more water?” she asked, getting a nod, so she helped him drink a few more cups before checking the wound. She was sure it had been a few hours by now, so it was time for the moss to come off anyway. She got it all pulled out and had to admit that it was looking a little better, and he didn’t feel quite as hot as before either. She bandaged it back up without the moss and kissed his forehead as he drifted back to sleep and went to get the last barrel piece and then started foraging for more oddly shaped pieces of wood and some longer thinner ones to make spears. 

By the time she got back from that trip the sun was directly overhead so it was time to see if she needed to go looking for a willow tree. Duke immediately woke up when she came in which was a good sign. Before she’d had to wake him up. She dropped her haul and went over to check his temperature and breathed a sigh of relief. “You still have a fever, but it’s lower now.” 

“I feel a little better too,” he told her. “Still pretty weak though. Help me sit up?” 

“You should probably get some more rest,” she told him. 

“I don’t think I can sleep any more right now, and I won’t do much. Just a little carving to keep busy. I promise to take it easy,” he assured her. 

“Okay, but I’m staying right here in case you need anything,” she told him. “It looks like there’s a storm moving in anyway.” 

“Well at least we have enough to keep us busy if we’re holed up in here for a while,” he sighed. Now he was even more glad that the moss was helping so much. He did /not/ want her out looking for a particular tree in the middle of a storm. 

Audrey went back and got the door shut back since she was in for the day, and since the carving area was right in front of the opening. She didn’t want the cold wind blowing on him right now. Once that was done, she did as requested and helped him up and over so he was leaning against the wall on that side. “What do you want to work on first?” she asked him. 

“Will you grab me the bow and a handful of the sinew?” he asked. 

Once she handed him the requested items she started organizing all the stuff she’d just thrown in over the course of the day, starting with the firewood, checking each piece for it’s suitability as a bow. She found a few possibilities and set them aside for Duke to check when he was finished with that one. She set the misshapen pieces in a separate spot to see what they could be done with, leaned the four spear pieces against the wall next to the carving area. That done she pulled out a few pieces of meat to start cooking for lunch. They’d both skipped breakfast and she was more than a little hungry. Getting something on his stomach would only help too. She did fill up both cups with water to set next to him in case he got thirsty while she was cooking. 

Duke finished up the first bow and drew it back to test it and it seemed good enough for now. He wasn’t actually going to fire it in here though to be sure. That could wait until he was up and around and could go outside to test it. He also checked the pieces that Audrey had set aside for a second one. He immediately discarded two of them for not being springy enough and picked the best of the other three to start on the second bow. He didn’t get very far though before lunch was ready and Audrey sat next to him while they ate.


	23. Chapter 23

Duke only managed to eat about half his lunch before his eyes were drooping again, so Audrey set it aside and helped him back over to lay down, wrapping him up in the hide blanket. “Don’t go anywhere?” Duke said as much as asked. They could hear the wind whipping outside by now as the storm she predicted came in. 

“I won’t,” she promised as she kissed his forehead before heading back over to the carving area and starting on the biggest of the three barrels. She was about halfway done with that when Duke woke up again and she got him some water before he went back to sleep. His fever wasn’t much better than it had been earlier, but it wasn’t going up again thankfully. She did end up having to somewhat break her promise though as she realized that in her worry she hadn’t refilled their water barrel. She didn’t have to go far for that at least. 

She regretted opening the door when she was blasted by the icy wind and that woke Duke up too. “What are you doing?” he asked worriedly, trying to sit up. 

“Just refilling the water barrel. I’ll be two feet outside the door and then I’ll be right back,” she promised, pulling her coat tighter around her.

“Be careful,” he said, accepting that explanation grudgingly. If she was going out in this to do it, then it must be necessary. 

Audrey dragged the barrel out and just tipped it on it’s side and used a paddle to sweep the snow into it. What was coming down was more ice than anything else and she was eager to get this done as quick as possible. She was only able to get it about three quarters full that way, but it would be enough for now. She dragged it back in about ten minutes after she went out and dragged the door back closed, irritated to see that the wind had taken out the fire so she went to get it started again. “Sorry,” she told Duke who was shivering again. “I should have done that earlier. I just wasn’t thinking.”

“S’okay,” he told her as she took the lighter to get the fire going again, not wanting to take the time to practice the other way right now. It didn’t take long before it was roaring again and Duke wanted to get up again so she helped him back over to work some more on the bow while she continued with the barrel. She was about three quarters done with that when she took a break to make dinner, reheating Duke’s half-eaten lunch along with it and after dinner, she checked Duke’s bandage and put some more moss in it before he went to lay down again. It was looking a lot better, but still not great. His fever had been starting to go up a little bit again too as far as she could tell. 

She stayed up and finished the barrel and started on a second one but didn’t get very far before she started yawning. Her lack of sleep a day full of worrying was catching up to her. She had mostly just been staying up so that she could take the moss off the wound when it was time anyway and she was relatively certain that it had been at least a few hours, so she did just that, getting him to drink a little more water to hydrate, and stoked the fire one more time before curling up to his side to join him in sleep. 

The next morning, his fever was down to what would be considered a low-grade if Audrey had to guess and he was up and moving around a bit better. In fact, he was already cooking breakfast when she woke up. After her morning ablutions, she took over for him. “I know you’re feeling a lot better, but you should still rest, at least for today. You still have a bit of a fever.” She was just glad that the storm was still raging so she didn’t have to argue with him about going out. 

“If you insist,” Duke chuckled and relinquished the paddle. He didn’t want to admit that he might have bitten off more than he could chew and had already been having trouble staying upright and the food was only half done. He sat back down in the carving area, intending to eat there too so he didn’t have to keep moving. They didn’t really have a designated eating area anyway. He didn’t bother getting started on anything while she cooked though. “Audrey?” he said after a while. 

“Hmm?”

“Thank you,” he said softly. 

“For what?” 

“For…caring,” he told her. There weren’t even words for how much it meant to him that she was here even when he was difficult. 

“I’ll always care, Duke,” she smiled. “I love you, and I will always be here when you need me just like you’re always here for me.” Knowing his past, at least a little of it, she got why it meant so much to him and would take any opportunity to reassure him of that, especially because he had so much trouble believing it. The food was finally done, so she took it back over to him and ran a hand through his hair, pressing a kiss to his lips as she sat down with him. 

“I’m not used to having anyone to count on,” he admitted. 

“Well get used to it, because I’m not going anywhere,” she promised, kissing him one more time before turning her attention to her food. 

Duke wanted to believe that. He really did. And most of him /did/ believe it, but there was still part of him that expected her to set off on her own once he’d taught her enough to make it alone. He didn’t actually say that though and just brushed a hand lovingly down her cheek before he started to eat. He actually managed to eat it all this time which was a plus and Audrey took it as the good sign it was. 

Once they were done, Audrey grabbed the dirty bandages and used a cup of water to clean them out as well as she could before unwrapping the current one to take a look at his shoulder. “It’s looking a lot better now,” she told him. “I do want to put the moss on it one more time just to be safe though. Are you getting any side effects from the iodine?” 

“Not too bad,” he told her. “A little cramping and nausea, but nothing I can’t handle. I’d rather that then end up laid up again if we don’t get it all.” 

“Okay, one more round it is,” she agreed and grabbed another chunk to break up and pressed it into the wound, muttering, “Sorry,” when he winced at the touch. Once she had it wrapped back up again, he caught her wrist before she could go far and gave her a deep loving kiss. 

She smiled brightly at him and brushed a hand down his cheek before they both grabbed their projects and got to work. It was going to be a long day cooped up, but at least they could get plenty done. Duke got back to work on the second bow while Audrey worked on the barrel, taking a break after a couple hours to remove the moss from his bandage. She had just gotten the barrel finished up and was about to take a break to make lunch when she noticed that the storm had let up a little bit. It still didn’t sound great out there, but it wasn’t as bad as it was before. “I should go take care of the barrels while there’s a lull,” she suggested. 

“That’s probably a good idea,” Duke said as he started to get up. 

“No, you stay,” she said firmly. “I got it.” 

Duke huffed, but did as he was told. When she went to get bundled up with her coat, Duke said, “Toss me the blanket while you’ll have the door open?” 

Audrey did him one better. She brought it over and tucked it tightly around him, making him roll his eyes and chuckle, but he was still touched by the action. Audrey took the waste bucket out to dump first before the smell got too bad, having to go a little farther for that one since they didn’t want to dump it too close to their cave. When she got back she took the main water barrel and actually filled it up all the way this time, unlike yesterday and then the other two barrels she had finished. She knew they wouldn’t all be used for water all the time, but for now they might as well while they were cooped up. There was no telling how long this storm was going to last. It was already picking up again by the time she finished and got the door closed back. 

The fire wasn’t actually out this time, but it was getting low so she went to build it back up before getting out of her coat and starting lunch. “We’ve got probably two days worth of meat left,” Audrey told Duke as she got it started. 

“With any luck this storm will be over by then and we can see about getting some more.”

“I know that this one came to us, but I vote we don’t hunt any more of these things intentionally,” she said, still not fond of the taste.

“I second that,” Duke agreed amusedly. “They’re not the tastiest things are they? Hopefully there will be something better to hunt.”

“I wonder why we haven’t seen anything else. You think it’s just because it’s winter or…”

“That’s probably part of it, but our neighbor likely has something to do with it too,” Duke told her. 

“But wouldn’t they know that it’s hibernating?” she asked curiously. 

“They probably don’t want to take the chance anyway, or maybe hibernation patterns are different here. I know there are some species of bear that wake up once a month or so to find food before going back to sleep, so maybe they know something we don’t.”

“Doesn’t that mean we should probably move?” she asked hesitantly. “What if it doesn’t like having neighbors?” 

“There’s no guarantee anywhere else would be better. Not to mention that bears don’t generally get along with each other well, so we’re not likely to end with more than one or two, possibly three if they have a baby. A lot of predators gather in packs. I’d rather have to watch my back for one or two enemies, no matter their size than dozens that could completely surround us.” 

“Good point,” Audrey agreed. “Do you think it might be better to try and take it out while it’s sleeping?” 

“Not a bear, no. They wake up very easily and fast. It’s not like other hibernators that take a while to get moving when they wake up. And then we’re trapped in its den with it and it’s very pissed. With bears back home, it’s generally pretty easy to avoid them. Just move away slowly and talk softly to let it know you’re not a threat or a meal and you’re good. You’re only in trouble if you panic and run. Hopefully these will be the same. Plus the fact that if it’s dead, we lose the cone of protection from other predators.”

“Okay, that makes sense,” Audrey agreed. “Move slowly and talk softly. I can remember that.” 

“But that’s also why I want to get the weapons ready. It’s not likely that our arrows will do anything more than piss it off, but the spears should be helpful if it comes after us,” Duke told her as she brought the finished food over and they dug in.


	24. Chapter 24

She checked his temperature after they ate and smiled. “It looks like your fever broke so you should be okay to be up and around again tomorrow if you’re feeling up to it.” 

“I’m sure I will be,” Duke nodded. “I’m feeling up to it now even, but you won’t let me,” he mock-pouted. 

“Hey, you were practically on death’s door yesterday. I’m allowed to be a little hovery for one more day,” she laughed. 

“I wasn’t /that/ bad,” he rolled his eyes amusedly, but gave her a quick kiss so she would know that he wasn’t upset about it. 

“You keep thinking that,” she snorted as they got back to work. She pulled over the last barrel to carve as he started on making the divots in the arrows now that he knew how thick they needed to be. “Do you know what you want to use the rest of these barrels for?” she asked. 

“One I want to use for seawater. That way we can clean the stuff that needs to be disinfected too like cooking implements and bandages. Another one will be for freshwater cleaning. The last I don’t know yet. Maybe just general storage,” Duke shrugged. “The smallest one is still a little big for cooking unless we’re feeding our bear friend too,” he chuckled. 

“Yeah, something tells me he’s not a fan of stew,” Audrey laughed. 

It didn’t take Duke long to finish the arrows and he had to get up to use the waste bucket anyway, so once he was done, he started going through the miscellaneous wood pile looking for something in particular and found something that wasn’t /exactly/ what he was looking for but would work well enough. It was a branch that had probably once been two branches that grew together because the middle of it was more like an O. He set that aside and started looking for forked pieces that would be long enough. They were easy to find and he soon returned to his spot and started sharpening the non-forked end. 

Audrey looked at him curiously but decided to just wait and see what he was making and turned her attention back to her barrel. Once he was done, he grabbed the gun again and she started to figure it out when he started hammering them in, one on each side of the fire. He crouched on one end and looked through the first one to make sure they were the same height and made corrections a few times before he was satisfied. Then he grabbed the O shaped piece and set it across them. He took his knife and made a cut on either side of the fork on both ends and then returned to his spot again and started digging out divots. “To keep it from flipping,” he told Audrey at her scrutinizing look and she just nodded. 

That didn’t take him long to finish either and he went and set it back up, giving it a little push to make sure it was secure and then broke the end off one of the four paddles and set it over the top of the O, giving it one more check for stability before nodding. “And now we have a stove,” he smirked. “And we can just take the top off and clean it as needed.” 

“Perfect,” she grinned. “You really are a genius you know.”

“I know,” he said smugly. “And now for the spears.” He’d wanted to get the ‘stove’ done in time for dinner and knew that it wouldn’t take long so got it out of the way first. The spears wouldn’t take long either since they didn’t intend to use them for throwing so they didn’t need to be uniform. Just sharp and have a solid grip. There were two shorter ones at about six foot long and the other two were half a foot longer, so two just shorter than him and the other two just taller than him. He assumed that Audrey intended the shorter ones to be hers. He decided to just do one of each tonight and got to work. He wanted the tip to taper for at least a foot to give maximum penetration. If they ended up having to use them against bears it would be necessary. 

He got Audrey’s done before it was time to start dinner and threw a few steaks on the stove after stoking the fire. They would have to go out for firewood tomorrow, storm or no storm, but they had enough to get them through the night at least. Once they were on, he was back to work on his own spear as Audrey finished up her last barrel and picked up her spear to inspect it and see how it felt in her hand. “I’ve got two grips on there,” he told her. “One in the middle to make it easier to carry and one further back for thrusting.” 

Audrey moved into a more open area and tried them both out before nodding. “It’s perfect.” They were just the right distance apart for her to be able to switch quickly if needed and give her more power in the push. Then she went to inspect the bows and tried drawing back the string. “Can I test it out?” 

“I suppose. Just be careful where you aim it,” Duke shrugged and handed her an arrow. He realized they would need to practice anyway and inside would be easier. He’d put a target on the walls at some point. Audrey tried it out and the arrow just glanced off the wall and she frowned. “I’ll teach you how to aim and we’ll get some practice in,” Duke promised, chuckling at her pout. She was so adorable like that. 

“What kind of range do you think they’ll have?” she asked curiously. 

“Probably not a lot. We don’t have much to work with there. Someday in the future if I get bored I’ll see about experimenting with different styles or some kind of pulley system to get a compound bow for more range, but for now the basics…maybe twenty yards if we’re lucky. And we’re not gonna take down anything big with it. Small deer at the most.”

“It’s still better than nothing though. Thank you,” she told him as she set it down and went to flip the steaks. 

“Once I’m done with this spear my next project will be some kind of spatula type tool,” he promised as she stuck her fingers in her mouth to cool them like they always did when they had to flip the hot meat. 

“That would definitely be helpful,” she told him. 

He was done with the spear by the time the food was done and he grabbed another paddle and slid it under the first to pull it off the fire and for them to use as a plate. While it was cooling, he grabbed the O stick base and set it back aside so it wouldn’t end up catching fire too if it was left there too long and they sat down to eat. He was pretty tired after having been so sick for so long, but still wanted to get the spatula done. It shouldn’t take long if he used one of the paddles for it. He could break one more and still have two left in case they needed to use the raft again and they were already flat and relatively thin. 

While he was working on that, Audrey used one of the smaller water barrels to start washing, starting with their ‘plate’ and ‘stovetop’ and then the bandages, one of which would replace Duke’s current one when he was done with what he was doing. Then she took off her clothes and gave them a good rinse, not having done that with anything but her underwear in a while and she hung that all up to dry. She had Duke take a break to strip so she could get his clothes too since he’d been sick and sweaty, and finally she went to get their last intact t-shirt to use to wipe herself down. 

By the time she was clean and was drying off with the flannel, Duke had finished the spatula and took his turn to wash. Since they had an adequate blanket now, they could lay on top of the coats, though Duke did have a plan for something more like a bed once they had time to manage it. While he got that laid out, Audrey got the wood added to the fire and then they laid down together, Audrey snuggled in Duke’s arms, glad that he was feeling better now. They stayed up talking for a little while, but not as long as usual since Duke was in need of one more good healing sleep.


	25. Chapter 25

Duke was able to take his turn with the fire that night and true to his prediction they were almost out of firewood by the time they woke up. “If you want to start grabbing some firewood, I’ll take care of the buckets,” Duke suggested, taking the heavy job for himself since she’d been doing everything for two days. 

“No, you get the firewood, I’ll get the buckets,” Audrey countered. Just because he was feeling better wasn’t any reason to overdo it right off the bat if it could be avoided. “It doesn’t sound like the storm is quite over yet so we need to be quick.” She knew that he was faster than she was at collecting the firewood anyway. 

“Fair enough,” Duke agreed as they got bundled up and headed out. They would worry about breakfast when they got back. It took both of them to get the door open this time and when they did, a good bit of snow fell in. “Well it’s a good thing we made a sliding door instead of a swinging one or we’d be trapped in here.” He ended up having to climb out since the snow was packed about waist high and moving was a pain which would seriously slow them down. 

Audrey decided to do it the easy way first and dumped the water barrels at the entrance, the warm water melting most of the snow that had come in and a little bit back from the door. Then she just started shoveling it in from there, barely even leaving the cave. The waste bucket was a different story though. It needed to walk a ways, but at least the entrance was somewhat cleared now so she didn’t have as much trouble. Once she was done, she pulled the door closed and went to join Duke in collecting firewood.

Firewood was both easier and more difficult. The storm had knocked a lot of limbs and even full trees down, but they were at least partially if not fully covered in snow. Instead of the no more than a foot that was usually on the ground that they could easily work with, they were slogging through four feet of snow. More in some places and breakfast became a distant dream. Worse was the fact that the storm started to pick up again after the first hour but they still didn’t have nearly enough firewood to get them through the day much less the night, so they had to keep going. They both would have sold their soul at that point for a nice set of gloves and a hat. 

It was almost the middle of the day, not that they could tell, by the time they had enough firewood and they were both soaked to the bone, exhausted from fighting the winds, a little battered from flying debris, and half frozen by the time they got back and managed to get the door shut. The fire had gone out and all of the heat had been sucked out of the cave while they’d been gone, even with the door closed behind them, so first priority was relighting the fire before stripping out of their soaked clothes and hanging them on the line. They got the steaks thrown on before huddling up under the blanket as close as they could get to the fire without actually being /in/ the fire. 

The blanket was barely big enough to cover one side of both of them at night so wrapping it around them required Audrey sitting in front of Duke between his legs with her legs tucked to her chest. His legs were bent up on the sides of her and he took an end of the blanket in each hand to wrap both his arms and the blanket snugly around them both. Since Audrey would have been just as disturbed by Duke moving, she volunteered to leave the blanket to flip the steaks with the new spatula and then darted right back into the warm circle. By the time the steaks were done they were warm enough to move back and lean against the wall with the blanket draped over them the normal way to eat and by the time they were done eating, they were able to move around again, even if they did raid the spare clothes to find something to put on. 

Duke gave Audrey the flannel, partially because the strips torn off the bottom for their blistered hands before would have made it a midriff on Duke, and partially because he was far more used to and resistant to the cold than Audrey. He took the thin sweatshirt for himself, but Audrey insisted that he take Nathan’s pants. He couldn’t argue with the fact that they would fit him much better, but he wanted her lower half to be warm too, so he came up with an idea to use the last t-shirt as a makeshift skirt. It wasn’t exactly comfortable with the neck of the shirt being around her waist and it looked a little ridiculous, but it served it’s purpose. 

Clothing figured out; they turned their attention to passing they day. “Since we’re stuck inside anyway, I might as well get started on some more of the wishlist,” he suggested, considering what to do first. 

“I don’t suppose we could put a comb of some sort on that wishlist?” Audrey asked hopefully. She wasn’t going to say anything before when it was about getting necessities, but if they were moving on to luxuries, she wanted that added to the list. She had been doing her best with her fingers, but they could only do so much, especially with all the dirt that was soaking into her hair too. She couldn’t even tell that she was blonde anymore. 

“Sure thing,” Duke assured her. “You should even be able to make one of those yourself even.” It wasn’t that he didn’t want to make her one, but the things that were easy enough for her to manage she might as well so he could work on the more complicated things. 

“Yeah, okay,” she said relieved. “Other than the relative shape, is there anything in particular I should be looking for?” she asked, going through the wood piles, glad that they hadn’t had to dig into the project pile for firewood. 

“You’ll probably want something at least a little springy to keep the bristles from breaking so easily,” Duke told her as he considered his next project. “And here let’s switch knives.”

“Why?” she asked as she held out her knife to do just that. 

“Mine has a wider base which would be better for that project while yours has a thinner tip which would be better for mine,” he chuckled as he took her knife and started spinning it in a spot near the top of the water barrel to carve out a hole. 

“Fair enough,” she agreed. “What are you working on?” she asked curiously as she returned to her search for something that would make a good comb. The more questions she asked, the faster she would learn.

“Handles,” he told her. “That way they’ll be easier to carry and we’ll also be able to tie another vine through them and cast it out into the ocean and then drag it in rather than having to get wet.” 

“Smart,” she nodded, definitely seeing how that would be up there in the priority list and suddenly feeling frivolous for wanting a comb for her hair. 

“A comb is smart too,” he told her, able to tell what she was thinking. “While I would recommend going with dreadlocks in the future if you don’t want to cut it short, it’ll still need to be combed out first from where it is.” 

Audrey nodded, deciding that she would prefer the dreadlocks to cutting it all off. If nothing else, her hair was making decent tinder and she’d already lost quite a bit to that purpose. She had joked that Duke had horrible timing cutting all his nice long hair off. She was glad that the stick she found was much longer than necessary because she had a lot of false starts and kept breaking it, but she refused to get frustrated. If Duke hadn’t been working on something more important, she would have asked for his help, but she resolved to figure it out on her own. It wasn’t complicated. Just delicate. 

Duke dug halfway through on the outside before switching to the inside so the hold wouldn’t be too wide. Once he got two done on one side, he tore a few strips off one of the vines they had laying around and started braiding them together. The barrels were heavy when filled so he wanted the handles to be strong enough to take it which meant braiding. When Audrey noticed what he was doing, she set the comb aside for the moment. She needed a break before she got any more irritated anyway. “You just work on the holes. I’ll take care of the braiding,” she offered. She found that process relaxing. Especially since the strips were thicker than they had been for the fishing line so it was much easier. 

Duke gladly relinquished that task and started on the other side of the barrel. Audrey was quick with the braiding so by the time he finished the holes in all the barrels, she had a whole pile of cords ready and then headed back to the comb while Duke threaded them through the holes and tied knots to keep them in place, testing each one with the full barrels just to make sure they were good and then he considered his next task. He went to the bone pile and found the smallest thinnest bone he could. Probably a toe bone if he had to guess, and he started his own very delicate work. “Needles,” he told Audrey when she looked at him curiously. “What you said the other day about me not needing stitches made me think that we should probably have some on hand just in case. Not to mention hopefully figuring out how to make clothes. I doubt either of us could manage gloves just yet, but even a couple pairs of mittens would be a godsend.” 

“I’m with you. I’ll take whatever I can get there,” Audrey chuckled. Digging through snow with their bare hands was never fun. “And hats or earmuffs, but hats would probably be easier,” she started dreaming. 

“We’ll see what we can figure out once we have a chance,” Duke agreed, still contemplating whether it would be worth it to sacrifice their blanket for the project or wait until they got something else, but they would see what happened. In the meantime, they needed the sewing materials anyway. He got six needles made, using the point of one to make the eye in the others, and stuck them all in the marrow of one of the larger bones to keep them secure and then moved it over to their supply corner and started using the sinew for thread.


	26. Chapter 26

Audrey finally finished her comb, but decided to wait until after dinner to worry about her hair and asked, “Anything else I can do?” 

“If you want to see if we have anything over there that would make a decent pot?” Duke suggested as he worked on stretching and thinning the sinew. 

Audrey dug through the pile and managed to find something. “It’s a little on the small side, but maybe this one?” she showed him the best option. 

“Yeah, it’s a little small for stew, but it wouldn’t be bad for teas or even just boiling water to sterilize things, so yeah, go ahead,” Duke nodded in acceptance, so she got started on that. It wasn’t long before Duke took a break to throw dinner on the fire and once it was time to flip them, he grabbed a rib bone and started winding their new thread around it so it wouldn’t get lost. None of the pieces were long enough to sew clothes probably without using more than one, but they would be enough if they got a wound that needed stitched. 

By the time dinner was ready, Audrey had finished the pot, so they put on some water to boil while they ate. They wanted to change Duke’s bandage after dinner and would prefer a sterilized one since they had the option now. The last thing any of them wanted was for it to get infected again and she was watching carefully for that. On the plus side, the mold colony that Audrey had replanted was doing well and even starting to grow again so they didn’t have to worry about that, but they still hadn’t managed to get out and find some willow trees or the void equivalent anyway. 

When they finished eating the water was at a rolling boil so Audrey grabbed two of the bandage pieces and dropped them in using a stick to stir it up and get it good and clean and left it in for about five minutes before using the same stick to pull them out. She used the pads of her fingers to separate them and lay them flat so they would cool faster, not wanting to put them down and recontaminate them. While they were cooling, Duke was untying and removing his current bandage and throwing that in the water. It would have to be resterilized before being used, but this way they could get it clean at least. 

It didn’t take long to get them cool enough not to burn, so Audrey handed Duke the stick while she took one to clean the area as best she could, tossing it back in the water when she was done and then took the last one to tie around. “It’s healing up pretty well, but we should still keep the bandages on for a few days,” she told him. 

“I can’t see it, so I’ll trust your judgement,” Duke chuckled. “Now come here. I’ve got a surprise for you,” he grinned, having been considering how best to do this since she mentioned the comb. He grabbed the pot after wrapping one of the flannel strips around the makeshift handle so he wouldn’t burn himself, and poured it into the smaller wash barrel to warm it up a bit before refilling the pot with the drinking water and putting it back on to boil. There were other things to clean now that they had the option too. “Now stick your head in and I’ll wash your hair for you.” 

“That’s a great idea, but I can…”

“You’ll have to be leaning at an awkward angle. It’ll be easier for me,” Duke interrupted, wanting to do this for her, especially after everything she’d done for him while he was sick. He let her pick what angle she wanted to use, and she sat in front of it and leaned back on her arms, dangling her head back into the water. Duke used one of the cups to pour over the part that didn’t make it in, and started running his hands through it as best he could to get most of the dirt out. All of it wasn’t really possible right now with as matted as so much of it was, but the more they could get out the easier it would be to comb and then they could do this again to get the rest. 

Once it was as clean as it was going to get for a while, Duke had her take off the flannel since they were plenty warm now and wrapped it around her hair, giving a quick rub so that it wouldn’t be dripping. The water was boiling again by then so Duke went and grabbed the needles he’d made and dropped them in along with the cup he wasn’t using for her hair and the spatula. He would leave them on for a while. When he got back to Audrey, she already had the comb and was working on her hair, so he sat down behind her and said, “Here let me.”

“I can do it,” she said. 

“Sweetheart,” Duke said in almost a whisper, pressing a tender kiss to her bare shoulder. “Let me brush your hair for you?” When he asked like that, Audrey couldn’t exactly say now and relinquished the comb with a soft smile. He started at the bottom and worked his way up as he asked, “Why do you resist whenever I try to do something nice for you?” 

She could feel the almost hurt in his voice and suddenly felt bad. She hadn’t really considered it that way. “It’s not that I don’t want you to do nice things for me,” she assured him. “It’s just…you do so much already just helping me survive. I…I don’t want to be a burden or…or take advantage of you or…”

“Audrey,” Duke said gently leaning around and using his finger on her chin to turn her to look at him. “You are /not/ a burden in any way. You do your part around here. More than your part when I was sick. You took care of me,” his voice was heavy with emotion in that last part. “You take care of me in so many ways. Let me take care of you sometimes too, okay?” 

Audrey nodded slowly, lost in his eyes and leaned forward for a loving kiss. “Just don’t forget that you already take care of me in so many ways too. I don’t want you to feel like you /have/ to do stuff like this, but if you want to, then I won’t try and stop you anymore.” 

“Good,” he smiled and brushed his hand down her cheek before sitting back and getting back to her hair. “And I know I don’t have to, but sometimes it’s nice to just sit here and spend time with you like this. To take a break from all the hardship and survival and just be, you know?” 

“Yeah, I definitely do,” she sighed contentedly as the comb continued working through her hair. Duke took a break at one point to get the stuff out of the boiling water and put it back away, but he left the water on until they were ready to wash her hair again. 

It ended up taking almost an hour to get all the tangles out and Duke sent her over to the bucket for one more wash, pouring the boiling water in first to heat it up and putting one more pot on to clean the cup that he was using for her hair. By the time he was done, she was actually blonde again and he tossed the cup into the boiling water and said, “Why don’t I braid your hair for you so it doesn’t get so tangled again?” 

“I’d like that,” Audrey smiled. “Can you do a French braid?” French braiding your own hair was hard enough with a mirror. Without one, she wasn’t even going to bother trying. 

“Not in my skillset, sorry. If you want to walk me through it, I’d be happy to give it a try though,” he offered. 

“That’s okay. Maybe another time. A regular braid is fine,” she assured him. It was starting to get late anyway. He brushed her hair out one more time and then put a tight braid in it, using a strip of cloth to tie it. Audrey pulled the last cup out of the boiling water and at Duke’s prompting just set the water aside to cool as he pulled the stovetop and O branch off and set them aside. Audrey made up their bed while Duke stoked the fire and got it built up for the night and before they laid down, Duke took the now cooled water and poured it over their little moss farm. Once he had stripped down and gotten settled, taking her in his arms, he told her, “Once the moss is a little stronger from their last transplant, we can move them over here to make a bed.” 

“Is it safe to sleep on with the iodine thing?” she asked curiously, sure that he’d considered that already, but just in case he hadn’t. 

“The iodine is in the roots, not the leaves. It’ll be fine,” he assured her. “We’ll just need to make sure to water our bed regularly,” he chuckled, knowing how absurd that sounded and intending it that way. 

“And if we get hurt, we can use our bed for medicine,” Audrey added, jumping on the absurdity bandwagon.


	27. Chapter 27

The next morning the storm had blown itself out finally, and they were able to get back to normal. They threw some meat on for breakfast and then worked on the barrels. They dumped them all, Duke taking the walk to dump the waste bucket. They even took the last of the meat out of the brining bucket and set it aside and dumped that one. They filled up their drinking water and then the smallest washing water bucket with snow and set the two next largest barrels aside to take for seawater after breakfast. By the time all that was settled breakfast was ready and they took a few minutes to eat. They grabbed their spears, leaving the bows and arrows until they learned how to use them, and of course took their knives, and carried the two buckets down to the ocean Duke’s casting method worked to fill them up well enough and they went to take them back, glad of the handles for the long walk. 

They didn’t quite make it all the way back though before they met their neighbor and even Duke breathed out a, “Holy shit,” as his eyes got as wide as saucers. Audrey was too terrified to even form words but was fighting not to have the physical reaction that Duke’s words suggested as they both slowly set down the barrels they were carrying. 

“Move away slowly and talk softly,” Audrey reminded herself, forcing a soft voice as she said it and just repeated it over and over. 

Duke took up her mantra and did the same, making sure to keep her behind him just in case. He’d seen some big bears in his life but this one took the cake. If he stood on his toes and reached up as high as he could, he /might/ be able to reach this thing’s chin. When it was on all fours like it currently was. Once it stood up and roared at them, it had to be at least twenty feet tall, if not more. That explained why their cave was empty at least. The damn thing probably wouldn’t even fit inside. 

Duke was more than surprised when it charged. They had been far enough away when they spotted him that he shouldn’t have felt threatened. Nevertheless he was quick to grab his spear, despite his doubt that it would do anything but piss the bear off. He just barely had time to cut himself and let the blood hit the ground with one hand as he shoved Audrey out of the way with the other and phased, letting the bear go right through him. “Run Audrey, I’ll distract it and meet you at home,” he called as the confused bear turned around, looking even more angry. 

Only the fact that he just successfully proved that he could avoid it by phasing had Audrey obeying the order, but she refused to go far. She wasn’t just going to leave him behind. She found a place nearby to hide and watch. A place small enough that the bear wouldn’t be able to get at her. When she started running the bear briefly turned its attention to her until Duke drew it back by running straight at the bear who reared up on it’s back legs and then came back down with the intention of crushing Duke under his paw, but Duke managed to phase as he rolled and avoid it. He ended up under the bear and stabbed up with his spear, but as he suspected, all it did was piss the bear off. He barely even pierced the hide. 

The bear twisted around and then swiped at him and Duke phased through it again, but he was starting to get tired and he had to figure out a way to get out of this without the bear following him either way. When the bear went to close his jaws around him, Duke had an idea. He phased himself, thrust the spear up through the top of the bear’s mouth towards what he hoped was the brain, and then let go of the spear, so it would rejoin the physical world as he rolled away again before unphasing. In a different situation he might have laughed at the bears confusion before it realized that it was dead and toppled over. As soon as it was dead, Duke fell to his knees, trying to catch his breath as the adrenaline faded from his system. 

Audrey rushed out of her hiding place and skidded to her knees in front of him. “Oh my god. Are you okay? Did it get you? Are you hurt anywhere?” she asked frantically, but Duke just pulled her into his arms, holding on for dear life, not even able to form words. That reassured Audrey about his physical state at least but made her worry more for his mental one. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Duke lose his cool like this. She had wondered more than once if it was even possible, but he was literally shaking like a leaf as he clung to her, clearly in shock. She ran a hand through his hair soothingly as she whispered, “Shh. It’s okay. We’re both okay. I’ve got you.” She wasn’t doing too much better than him if she was honest, but they couldn’t /both/ fall apart so she had to force herself to hold it together as he buried his face in her neck. “It’s okay. I’ve got you,” she said like a mantra, trying to remind herself of that as much as him. 

It was a good twenty minutes before he snapped out of his stupor like it had never happened and by then both of their knees were freezing. Duke staggered to his feet, helping her up in the process and looked over the giant bear. “Well, it looks like our day is planned,” he said in awe as he tried to make a plan. “Why don’t you run the barrels back to the cave and bring the spare one out here along with two of the paddles while I get started on this?” 

“Okay,” Audrey agreed, but not before pulling him into a searing kiss. She didn’t ask why any of it right now. She was sure that she would see what he had in mind and she could only imagine how long this was going to take so they didn’t have time for explanations. She could ask once she finished her tasks. She could only take the barrels one at a time and after the first one, she came back with the spare and the paddles before taking the second one. 

Duke decided not to try and gut it. It wasn’t like they were going to get it anywhere anyway. Whatever remained when they were done would have to be left here. He did take a minute to find the main artery in the neck to bleed it out. It took him five passes to saw through enough to get the blood flowing and then moved out of the way as quick as he could before he got drenched in it. Then he started on the hide. His four-inch blade was barely long enough to break through it and he started right above the ground, going from front leg to back leg and then cutting a strip up each side to start peeling. He wasn’t going to worry about getting the entire hide right now. The primary portion would be more than enough and they could get the rest if there was time. 

Once the outline was done, he picked one of the bottom corners and started peeling and cutting the skin away. There was still a little bit of blood since it hadn’t been drained completely, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He was still mostly covered by the time Audrey got back from her first trip though with the spare bucket and the paddles. By the time she got back from her second trip, she saw what he wanted the paddles for as they were propping up what he had already skinned as he stood underneath it. “What can I do?” she asked as she tried to ignore how bloody he was. 

“You can come help me with this,” he told her, motioning her under and showing her the best way to do it. By then most of the blood was gone from the body so it wasn’t quite as messy for her, though she did still get some, but she didn’t balk at it, keeping her squeamishness internal as she got to work. It took about an hour for them to get up as high as they could reach. High enough to make the rest of the job easier at least. Duke moved around to the other side first and made the horizontal cut just above ground level and then started going up before returning to Audrey. “Okay, I’m gonna lift you on my shoulders. You see the lines I made?” She nodded. “You keep them going as high up as you can reach. We’re gonna get both sides and then you’re gonna climb on top.”

“Okay,” she said nervously and climbed on his shoulders when he crouched down, trying to be careful of his bad shoulder, but not able to do much about it and it wasn’t like she could lift him like this instead.


	28. Chapter 28

Once both sides were done, he hoisted her on top of the bear and told her, “Now continue the lines and go as far down as you can on the other side without falling.” He moved around the other side to watch, coaching her to angle the lines to connect with his which were wider on the back. They ended up with about a six inch gap in between the lines, but he figured that would be okay and had her toss the knife to him before going back around to the other side. He used the paddles to lift what they’d already done. “Now grab hold of the middle of that and hold on while you slide off the other side, but wait until I get over there to catch you,” he told her as he rushed around. 

“You’re sure this is going to work?” she asked dubiously. 

“Positive,” he assured her. “Come on. I’ve got you,” he coaxed. 

She took a deep breath and made sure she had a good grip on the hide before she let herself slide and true to Duke’s prediction, the skin peeled right off as she did and then it was just a matter of pulling the rest of it down to the marks Duke had made. “That was actually kinda fun,” she couldn’t help but admit, pulling a chuckle from Duke. 

“You wanna run that home real quick and then run back and help with the rest?” 

“Should I go wash it off in the ocean first?” she asked, knowing that they would need to do that anyway and it would only be a few minutes out of the way. 

“No, it’s gonna be too heavy wet. We’ll have to cut it down and then take smaller pieces one at a time,” he told her as they rolled it up to make it easier to carry. As she headed off with that, Duke started on the major ligaments, pulling both of them from the back, managing to cut them away intact and then piled them into the spare bucket that she’d brought and started on the smaller ones. By the time she got back the bucket was full and she made another trip to dump it while Duke started cutting chunks of meat from the areas that he’d already cleared of ligaments. Each chunk was about half as big as he was and he just tossed them down into the snow. 

As much as he would love to be able to teach Audrey how to clean an animal with this one, there was no time. Anything they didn’t get back tonight would probably be gone which meant that she was mostly just carrying stuff back. When she got back and saw the pile of meat she asked, “Maybe we should have kept the barrels here to go ahead and put them in?” 

“No, we have to slice them up first anyway, which we can do inside,” he told her as she started taking the chunks of meat, only able to carry one at a time and he started pulling sinew from other sections to fill up the bucket again. Aside from needing to eat and stay warm which was already covered, that was the most important part. Not that they wouldn’t keep getting as much of the meat as they could manage, but the ligaments were the priority now. 

By the time Audrey got all the hunks of meat back, the bucket was full again, so she went to dump it while he got more meat and so it continued, with occasional breaks for her to go and gather firewood until the sun started to set at which time he abandoned his half finished rendering and started helping her rush everything else back to the cave, barely managing to get it all in before it was too dark to see. “What about the rest of it?” Audrey asked as she got the fire going. 

“Those rodent things seem to be nocturnal. They’ll probably scavenge the rest tonight. We should still be able to go back and get the bones though and maybe even a little more hide depending on how much they damage what’s left,” He told her as he stripped out of his bloody clothes, prompting her to do the same. 

“That’s good. At least it won’t go to waste and we can still get the bones,” she nodded in acceptance. “It’s not like we need any more meat,” she chuckled as she took the flannel he handed her to start cleaning the blood off of herself. 

“No kidding. We’re gonna really be testing that whole month-long time limit on brining,” he said amusedly. “And we’re probably gonna need to use everything we have for it and then some.” At least they were set on food for a while. Once she was done cleaning up, she handed him the flannel after rinsing it and he did the same. Then he started rinsing their clothes out while she put some of the rat steaks on for dinner. 

“Are we sure they’re still good after being out all day?” she asked. 

“Yeah, the salt from the brining will keep them preserved for at least a few more days,” he told her. 

“How long do we have to get all this in the brine?” she asked gesturing at the stacks of bear meat that practically filled their empty space. 

“No more than forty-eight hours,” he told her as he poured the bloody water over the moss, knowing that the blood wouldn’t hurt it and not wanting to dump it right outside the door. “I’d suggest working through the night.” 

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she shrugged, helping him get the door open enough to shovel snow into the wash bucket before going to hang up their now cleanish wet clothes. 

Duke didn’t think he’d ever filled a bucket up so quick, but that icy air blowing on his naked body was more than enough incentive to hurry up and then close the door. He was glad for the excuse to get near the fire to flip the steaks. He hadn’t exactly been /warm/ before that given the fact that the fire hadn’t been going long, but now he was frigid. Audrey wasn’t much better off, so she joined him at the fire, deciding to take a break while the food was finishing to get them both warmed up and plan their nights. 

“What do you suggest we do first?” Audrey asked. “After we eat, I mean.” They were both feeling the fact that they’d been too busy for lunch. 

“We should work on slicing down the meat, at least until both of our saltwater barrels are filled and then we can cut the hide into more manageable pieces,” Duke told her. 

“That is a lot of hide,” she nodded. “Can I request a piece to lay on and a piece for a blanket? It’s heavier than our current blanket.”

“That was what I was thinking yeah. And we should still have half left after that. Once that’s ready I figure we can use our current blanket to experiment with thing likes mittens and hats and whatever. We’ll probably end up wasting the first few anyway and save the good stuff for when we’ve got it down.” 

“That’s a good plan,” she nodded. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never really sewed at all.”

“I can do a basic stitch, like sewing up a rip or something. It’s somewhat necessary out on the ocean in case you get a torn sail, but that’s about all I can do,” Duke shrugged. “We’ll figure it out though. Trial and error.” 

They pulled the food off the fire and sat down to eat as Audrey thought of something else. “We’ll also need to get your spear back tomorrow. We forgot that.”

“Nah, that’s gone. It basically rematerialized as a part of the bear’s skull. It’s not coming out and it would be easier to just carve a new one than try and break it out and then sand down the skull parts,” Duke told her. When Audrey suddenly snickered, Duke looked at her amusedly. “What?” 

“I just…had a mental image of bringing it back with the head still attached and putting it outside our door like a warning. Head on a pike kind of thing,” she laughed. 

Duke laughed with her and shook his head. “I would love the idea if not for the fact that it would attract scavengers and maybe even other predators.” 

“I know. It was still a funny thought though.”

“It was that,” Duke replied, still chuckling as they set aside the finished dinner. “Well…time to get to work it seems.” At least he was warm now and the fire had heated the rest of the cave well enough. 

As they started cutting down the meat to the right size and tossing each piece in one of the two already filled salt-water barrels, Audrey sighed. “Sometimes I wish you were a real pirate.”

“Why?” Duke asked amusedly, wondering where that came from. 

“Because then we’d have swords instead of these dinky knives,” she joked. 

“Swords would come in handy wouldn’t they,” Duke said with a grin as he sawed at his chunk. “At some point I’ll get around to making some bone knives and I’m sure some of those bear ribs could be worked into bone swords instead if you really want one.” 

“Maybe. We’ll see,” she laughed. “Do you know how to use a sword?” she asked curiously. 

“I know how to wave it around and stab things if that counts?” Duke said with an amused shrug. 

“Not really, no,” she shook her head. “Honestly, what kind of pirate doesn’t know how to use a sword?” she teased. 

“Weren’t you the one who just said I wasn’t a real pirate?” he snorted. The banter and jokes continued through the night as they worked, it being the best way to keep themselves moving through the grueling process.


	29. Chapter 29

It took most of the night before they had both of the salt-water barrels filled with meat along with the spare barrel that Audrey had the idea of pouring some of the water into when it the addition of the meat pushed the water level too high and they still had about half the meat left. They still took a break though and started with the hide putting their very early breakfast on to cook while they did. They cut it into three full size blankets instead of two. “That way if we’re wandering around the cave and want a blanket wrapped around us we each have one without having to take the one from the floor,” Duke suggested. 

“Makes sense,” Audrey agreed. “I still can’t get over how soft the bear’s fur is,” she said, unable to resist petting it frequently as they cut it. The rodent they’d killed had coarse uncomfortable fur. 

“It is pretty soft,” Duke admitted. “It’ll definitely be comfortable to sleep on that’s for sure.”

“Might even be better than the beds back home,” Audrey chuckled. “It’s almost as thick as a mattress anyway.” 

“With the addition of the moss, it will be that thick,” Duke pointed out as he went to flip the steaks. 

“I’m so glad that this is the last rat we’ll be eating. At least for a while,” Audrey said relieved. 

Once the three blankets were separated, Duke rolled the rest of it back up and leaned it against a wall while Audrey rolled up the three blankets to lean against the door just in time for the food to be done. After they ate, they got back to the meat. If they could get it all cut up, then it would be ready to throw in the brine once the sun came up and they could get to it. 

Since they’d already eaten, once the sun came up all they had to do was get dressed and go. They decided to use their main drinking water barrel since it was the biggest and just use the smallest barrel that they usually washed with for drinking water until they could make more barrels. They would just have to refill it more often that way, but they would manage. First they needed to wash it out though so they took both barrels and the three blankets down to the ocean. 

On the way, they stopped to look at the carcass. “Wow the rats did quick work,” Audrey said with a shudder. 

“Yeah, they did. There must be more of them than I thought,” Duke said as he inspected it. “I don’t think we’re gonna get any more hide from it. They did a pretty thorough job.” 

“That’s okay. We have plenty for now,” Audrey reminded him. 

“That’s true,” he nodded, and they got back on their way. They would come back for the bones once everything else was taken care of and give the rats a few more days to get them completely clean. 

“I don’t suppose we can clean the furs with the cast method like we fill the barrels?” Audrey asked hopefully once they got to the beach. 

“Unfortunately, not,” Duke shook his head. “But there’s no need for both of us to freeze. I’ll do the furs if you can handle the barrels.” 

“Okay, I can do that,” Audrey agreed, knowing that he could handle the cold better than she could. She had every intention of keeping him in front of the fire for a good while once they got back though. 

Duke took off his shoes, socks, and even his jeans and rolled his thermals up above his knees, steeling himself to step into the cold water. He washed them as quickly and as thoroughly as he could, rubbing the salt water deep into the flesh and then rolled each one up and tossed it up to the beach before starting on the next. The sand would come off easily once it was dry so he wasn’t too worried about that part. When the last one was done, he ran it up on the beach and shrugged his coat off to dry his feet and lower legs before putting his jeans and shoes back on. 

By the time he was done, Audrey had already figured out the best way to carry everything back. She put her spear through all the handles of both barrels, one empty and one with all three of the furs standing inside it. Duke nodded proudly and grabbed one end of the spear and the hoofed it back to the cave. Once they got there, Duke stripped his shoes off and sat down with his feet in front of the fire as he started tossing meat into the new salt-water barrel and Audrey filled up the new drinking water barrel. 

It didn’t take long before they realized that they still didn’t have enough. “We’re gonna need at least two more bigger barrels to store all this,” Duke sighed. “Unless we want to just toss it outside and let the rats eat it.”

“We still have about twenty-four hours right?” Audrey asked as she hung up the wet furs on the line, getting a nod from Duke. “Okay so if I can find two more pieces of wood good enough for barrels and we each do one, we should be able to get them done in time to make one more trip to the ocean in the morning and fill them.” 

“We could do that,” Duke said thoughtfully as he started to get up. 

“No, you stay here and warm your feet. The last thing we need is for you to end up with frostbite or something. I’ll go find the wood,” she said firmly. “You just stay here and work on cutting up the rest until I get back.” 

As much as Duke hated sending her out to do the heavy work, he couldn’t really argue with her assessment so he just huffed and nodded. The first time Audrey came back it was with an armload of firewood. The same for the next time. The third time, she was carrying a barrel. “Finally found one,” she said relieved. “And there’s a couple more in the same place. Gotta love beavers.” 

“I can come help now,” Duke assured her getting up to put his socks and shoes back on. 

“You’re sure?” she asked skeptically. 

“Positive,” he assured her. When she showed him the spot he set her to collecting more firewood while he got the heavy barrel chunk of wood, grabbing the biggest one he could find that Audrey probably wouldn’t have been able to carry so far. 

Once they got back, they threw some bear steaks on the fire for lunch and then started on the barrels while they were cooking. They didn’t even take a break to eat, though they did slow down quite a bit. “Okay now /this/ is good,” Audrey said as they dug in. “A little tough and could still be improved with some seasonings but…”

“Once we get to the brined ones they’ll be more tender and the salt will help with the seasoning until we manage to find some other flavorings,” Duke assured her. “It is much better than the rat though.” 

They managed to get the barrels ready in time to make a trip to the ocean before it got dark, if only barely. While their dinner was cooking they were cutting up the last of the meat and getting the rest of it brining and it barely fit. If not for their lunch and dinner they would have run out of space and the second that was done, they didn’t waste a second before climbing into bed with their old rat pelt blanket. The bear ones were still drying. After going non-stop for two days straight, they were both asleep in seconds and barely managed to get up to keep the fire going during the night. They even slept until late morning to catch up on what they missed. 

Audrey was still a little groggy as they woke up. “What are the chances that we can take a lazyish day?” she asked wearily. 

Duke chuckled and pulled her in closer. “Chances are pretty good actually. Aside from firewood and refreshing the buckets there’s nothing that we really /have/ to do today. I think we’ve earned a lazy day. In fact, I saw we lounge around in bed until we get hungry enough that we have to get up.” 

“Mmm, I like the sound of that,” Audrey said contentedly as she snuggled deeper into his arms. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a day off. Or a day ‘mostly’ off anyway. Even before they came here and wasn’t it sad that being here was more relaxing than being home had been since the troubles went haywire. Or was this home now? “The other day…you said to take the stuff ‘home’,” Audrey remembered. 

“Did I?” Duke asked as he thought back. 

“Yeah. You did,” she said softly. “And…I didn’t even realize until just now. Is this…really ‘home’ now?” 

“I think…home is where you make it,” Duke said carefully, not sure if he was stepping on a landmine or not. 

“And we’re making it here,” she nodded, pressing a kiss to his chest. “Do you miss it? Earth…Haven…all that?” 

“I miss the Cape Rouge,” Duke admitted. “I miss being on the water. I miss good food. I even miss…Nathan. But other than that, no.”

“I thought I would miss it more than I do. I feel guilty for not missing it more,” she admitted sadly. 

“You haven’t really had /time/ to miss it,” Duke pointed out. “We’ve been working so hard just to survive that we haven’t had much time to just sit and think about stuff, you know?” 

“How long have we been here? I lost track,” she asked curiously. 

“Me too. I think around three weeks or so though give or take,” he shrugged. 

“Three weeks. It feels like so much longer,” she sighed. “I wonder how things are going back in Haven.”

“I think they’re currently having a big parade to celebrate ending the troubles forever,” Duke said, deciding that if they were going to speculate wildly it might as well be good speculation. 

“And everyone’s eating pie and candy while they listen to the music and watch the parade,” Audrey chuckled. 

“And the afterparty is going to be at the newly rebuilt Grey Gull which they’ve renamed Duke’s to honor their favorite smuggler,” Duke grinned. 

“Hey how come it wouldn’t be Audrey’s?” she pouted playfully. 

“Oh they renamed the whole town. It’s not Haven anymore. It’s Audreyville…Audreytown? No, no. I got it. Audrey’s Haven,” Duke laughed, pulling the same from Audrey.


	30. Chapter 30

Once the hilarity ended, Audrey sighed heavily, burying her face in Duke’s neck as her hand trailed over his chest. “I wish it could be like that.” 

“How do you know it’s not?” Duke asked. “We have no idea what’s going on there. I mean, sure things looked pretty bad when we left, but things have been bad before and turned around. You never know.” 

“But without the controller crystal…”

“They could have found another way,” Duke told her. “Granted they’re missing their three best minds, but hey…people could always step up and fill the deficit. It would just take a lot more of them.” 

Audrey huffed a laugh. “I guess you’re right. About the first part I mean. They could have found a way. I just…I’m supposed to be there helping, but instead I’m here and…”

“Fighting for your life and trying to survive?” he pointed out, running his hand down her back. “Just because we can find some happiness in a bad situation doesn’t mean we don’t have our own problems.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” she sighed. She and Nathan had found happiness with Haven falling down around their ears so this was no different. “I guess it’s just…I can’t help anyone here. It makes me feel guilty to know that people could need me and I’m not there.” 

“Okay, let me ask you this…do you feel guilty for not being in Africa feeding the starving children?” 

“Well…no,” she shook her head starting to see his point. 

“Do you feel guilty for not being out in the middle east negotiating peace?”

“No,” she said as the weight started to lift off her shoulders. 

“No, because you can only influence what you have control over. We’re stuck here. We can’t get back. That’s a fact. There’s nothing to feel guilty for because we can’t control it. All we /can/ do is survive so that if we’re ever found or we /do/ get a way back, we can help them again.” 

“How did you get so wise?” she asked, pressing a kiss to his chest. 

“I don’t know. I guess I was just born this way,” he said smugly, getting a playful smack to his stomach as they both laughed. 

It wasn’t long before their stomachs started growling so they got up. Duke threw some bear steaks on the fire along with a little more wood while Audrey went to check on the pelts. “I think they’re dry,” she told him. 

“Give it a good squeeze to be sure,” Duke told her. 

“Yep. They’re dry,” she confirmed, pulling one off the line and laying it out over the floor, rolling up the old one and putting it with the other spare. That done, she sat down on it and sighed happily. “Oh yeah. This is comfortable.” 

Duke chuckled and went to sit next to her, handing her a cup of water as he sipped his own. “You’re definitely right about that.” 

Audrey leaned against his side and he wrapped his arm around her. “Thank you, Duke.” 

“For what?” 

“For…just being you,” she sighed happily, laying her head on his shoulder. 

“That’s not something most people thank me for,” he said amusedly. 

“Well everyone on this planet loves you dearly,” she replied with a grin. 

“I don’t think Smokey liked me very much, and I can guarantee you that Ratty didn’t,” Duke huffed a laugh. 

“They’re not people, they don’t count,” Audrey told him. 

“So, what you’re saying then is that you’re the only one that loves me,” he teased. 

“Ass,” she laughed, elbowing him in the stomach. 

“That’s okay, because you’re the only one I care about,” Duke said, stealing a kiss before he got up to flip the steaks. 

After they ate, they took a nice long while to ‘christen’ their new bed and then stayed cuddled up in it for an even longer while before Duke said, “We need to get up for firewood and get some more water before it gets too much later.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Audrey sighed, pulling herself out of his arms, and out from under their new toasty blanket. They got dressed, emptied the waste bucket, refilled the water one, and gathered firewood relatively quickly before making dinner and then going back to bed early. Not that they slept for a few hours, of course. 

The next morning their break was over and Duke suggested going to get the bones from the bear and bringing them back since they should be as clean as they would get by then. It took them most of the morning to get them all hauled back in multiple trips. As they tried to get it all put up out of the way, Duke suggested, “We might want to look at appropriating another cave for storage.” 

“Yeah, that would probably be a good thing. But we should probably make a door for it before we put anything in there though.”

“Most definitely,” Duke nodded. “And get a better storage system for in here too.” 

“Yeah, that would be nice too,” she agreed. 

“We don’t really have time to start on a door today, so we can do that tomorrow. For today why don’t we just go get a few more of those big logs and then some firewood and call it a day?” 

“That sounds like a plan,” she nodded. They took two trips each for logs, bringing back four of them, including a small one that would make a good stew pot and then collected plenty of firewood before stripping down to one layer for the evening. It was still a little early for dinner so Audrey started carving out the stew pot while Duke laid one of the other logs down and started digging out divots in the sides. She wondered what he was going to end up doing with it, but decided to wait and see. 

There was a lot of banter back and forth as they worked and just enjoyed each other’s company and by the time dinner came around she was done with the stew pot, but after some debate they decided to set it aside until they had bowls and a ladle and they just had steaks for dinner, after which she started on a new water barrel. By the time they were ready for bed, she could see what Duke’s project was going to end up being and had to admit that all the little cubby holes in the wood were cute and would come in handy. 

The next morning, the first thing they did, after breakfast and taking care of the buckets of course, was start scouting for other caves. Out of curiosity their first stop was the bear’s den and Duke whistled. “Well it’s not the Taj Majal but it’s probably as close we’ll find here.” 

“Yeah, but think how much wood it would take to heat this place,” Audrey chuckled. 

“That’s a point,” Duke conceded. “Our place is plenty big enough once we get some of the clutter out of the way. Plus we’d have to make a new vent hole in the ceiling and that would be a pain.”

“Remember we’re not looking for a new home. We’re looking for storage space,” Audrey reminded him amusedly. 

“I know. I wouldn’t want to build a door big enough for this opening anyway,” Duke agreed. “But it is pretty nice.” 

“Yeah, it is,” she nodded, before stopping to wonder when her definition of ‘nice’ changed to include a dirt cave. “Come on. We assuaged our curiosity. Now let’s go find what we’re looking for.” 

They checked out a few other caves, one inhabited by bats that was obviously skipped over, but they finally settled on the one right next to theirs for the simple reason that it was right next to theirs. “I wonder how thick this wall is,” Duke said thoughtfully. 

“You’re not thinking of knocking it down, are you?” she asked worriedly. 

“No, I wouldn’t dare. It might bring the whole cave down on us. But a door maybe,” he said thoughtfully. “Oh well, either way, it’s for another time. We have another door to consider first.” 

“Yeah, we do. But it would be nice to have a door into the storage room though,” she admitted. 

Cave decided on, they measured the doorway and then went looking for branches to make a door and that project kept them busy for the rest of the day, but they got the door in place with the same sliding system as theirs. They would have to wait until the next day to start moving things over though. Once they were in for the night, they got back to work on their projects, Audrey finishing the new water barrel and Duke working on his shelving, only breaking for dinner and both of them finished before bed. Mostly at least in Duke’s case. He still wanted to get the bark sanded off the outside to make it look better, but function over form for now. It was late by that point so they just headed to bed, after building the fire back up of course.


	31. Chapter 31

The next morning, Duke went to empty their waste bucket while Audrey filled up the new water bucket and the small one went back to being a wash bucket. Then they got to organizing their home. Most of the bones and sinew got moved over to the new cave except for a few pieces that Duke had something clear in mind for and wanted to work on in down times. The spare hide, both bear and rat also got moved over as did the project wood, aside from the three pieces Duke picked out to make bowls and a ladle from. 

The needles and thread were put into one of the small cubbyholes, the spare clothes had the dirt shaken out of them and were put into the big one in the center. The clean bandages and fabric scraps were wrapped up and put in another cubby. One held a couple pieces of sinew. One was a perfect fit for their arrows. Another larger one for the guns and the one next to it for the bullets and firing pins. There was even a cubby for the Aether core and crystal. Duke hammered one of the arrows into the wall and hung the bows on it and the cups and spatula were set on the smoothed down top. Audrey was more than a little impressed. “Now that’s perfect,” she said with a grin. 

“I’m glad it worked out like I intended,” Duke said with a satisfied nod. “Now, I know that exploring is getting to be a priority. For medicinals if nothing else, but I would really rather get a new spear taken care of before we do that, so tomorrow?” he suggested. 

“Yeah, tomorrow works,” Audrey agreed. “Your shoulder is about healed by now anyway, so we should be fine to wait until then.” She had finally agreed that it didn’t need to be bandaged anymore that morning. It still looked a little mangled, but it was closed at least. 

“Okay then why don’t we work on collecting firewood until lunch, maybe even put some overflow in the storage cave so we don’t have to worry if something happens and we run out, and then I can work on a spear and we can do other projects the rest of the day?” She easily agreed to that plan and they headed out to get started on the firewood, grabbing a few more misshapen pieces for future projects along the way. 

After lunch, Audrey asked, “Is there anything in particular I should be working on or just pick something?” 

“Take your pick,” Duke told her as he pulled out his new spear to get started. He’d considered using one of the rib bones from the bear, but they were too curved to be useful and the rest of the longer bones were too thick, especially on the ends, so he was sticking with wood for now. 

“I think I’ll work on some bowls,” she decided. “And maybe a ladle.” 

“Sounds good. And maybe tomorrow during our exploring we’ll find some stuff that will be good for seasonings and have a real stew,” he grinned. “In the meantime, while I’m thinking about it…” he set the spear aside for a few minutes and filled up the stew pot with water and set it on the ‘stove’. “I want to get some of those vertebrae cleaned and sterilized to make some things with.” 

Audrey was glad that he was the creative type because for the life of her she couldn’t just look at a piece of wood and see a bowl or a cabinet or whatever else he thought to make. She was getting pretty decent at carving though at least so once he told her what to make from it, as long as it wasn’t complicated, she could do that much. It wasn’t pretty, but then none of their stuff was really. It worked though and that was the important thing. Since she was already getting up to grab the wood for the second bowl when the water started boiling, Duke asked her to throw the four biggest vertebrae in it since that was all that would fit. 

Once he finished his spear he started digging through the wood scraps pile that they kept everything swept into and came up with four relatively large shards that had one side flat from the knife and he grabbed the sanding rock and started sanding down the non-flat sides. He only got one finished before he went to move the pot off the fire and then went to the firewood pile and found a pine log and started chipping chunks of the resin off. Once he had a handful he went back and grabbed one of the vertebrae, setting the dried resin aside and started sanding down the bottom of the vertebrae to make it flat. 

About the time Audrey was starting on the ladle, he was fitting the vertebrae on top of the piece of wood and then set the resin inside and moved the whole thing back over the fire. “You’re making more cups?” Audrey asked curiously, not so sure about the misshapenness of them and she liked the idea of drinking out of wood more than bone anyway. 

“Not cups exactly. More like liquid and powder storage. They’ll be good for grinding things up too like seasonings or berries in the spring or stuff like that. We can even empty out the gunpowder from our bullets if we ever need to use it for something,” Duke explained. 

“Okay yeah. That’s smart,” Audrey nodded. 

“But first, I’m making glue,” Duke chuckled. “Can’t do anything without glue.” He grabbed the next vertebrae to start smoothing and flattening one side. He could do the bottom of the rest of the wood pieces later. He had all three of the vertebrae ready by the time the resin was fully melted so he used a stick to drag a charcoaled piece of wood out of the fire and took a second to grind a bit of that up and added it slowly to the resin, stirring with one of the tiny bones that he hadn’t gotten around to making a needle from yet until it was the right consistency then he started putting it around the sanded bottom of the vertebrae and sticking them on the wood. He knew that the making of the glue in the first one would bind it, though the glue would melt whenever it was heated. Once all three of the others were setting he pulled the first off the fire and put it aside. “Now whenever we need glue, we can just heat that one up to soften it,” he told her. 

“Perfect,” Audrey said with a grin before hitting the project pile of wood to see about trying her hand at forks and spoons. 

While that was setting, Duke went to grab one of the rat ribs and sat back down to start carving it. First he sharpened one end and then started adding grooves to make a drill bit of sorts. It would require a lot of elbow grease but it would do the job and now that he had glue he could even fasten a handle to the top to turn it by, using one of the leg bones for that, carving out a groove to fit it in, dropping some glue in there and just sliding it on. By the time that was finished it was time to start dinner, after which he finished sanding the bottom of his vertebrae containers so they would sit level now that the glue was set. 

When he inspected Audrey’s work, he grinned at her. “That’s perfect. We almost have a full kitchen now,” he chuckled and started putting the utensils in cubbyholes, leaving the bowls stacked on top of the plates he’d cut out of the same paddle he made the spatula from. 

“We can really do this can’t we?” she said with a grin of her own. “Make a life here, I mean.”

“We can make a life anywhere,” Duke assured her. “That’s what separates us from the animals. Our ability to adapt.” 

“And that’s why I love you so much,” she said, sliding her arms around his neck. “Your ability to take anything life throws at you and make the best of it. And your ability to teach me to do the same.” 

“And one of the things I love the most about you is your willingness to learn. Most people in your situation would have just sat down and given up or complained about the work or the gross factor, but not you. You just do what needs to be done and are willing to listen to suggestions when you don’t know what that is,” he told her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close. “And you have no idea how sexy that is.” 

“Oh yeah? Prove it?” she smirked, and he did. Twice. They fell asleep sated and happy.


	32. Chapter 32

Their exploring the next day netted them the motherlode. They went the opposite direction of the sea, since they’d explored that way and out from the cave but hadn’t gotten any further away. The more they could find closer to their makeshift home the better. It wasn’t exactly as close as they might have liked, but it was close enough to work with. It was about a half hour walk so something like two miles if they had to guess, making it three and a half miles to the ocean. They stepped through the trees to find a wide clearing with a large lake in the center and on the far side of the lake was a line of willow trees. “Wow, this is beautiful,” Audrey said in awe as she looked around, the snow giving it almost an ethereal glow. 

“It’s better than beautiful. A clearing like this means that something grows here, probably something useful. Won’t be able to tell what until spring, but even if it’s not useful, we can always /make/ it useful. Put a garden up here or something and we have a source of fresh water now for when the snow is gone,” Duke pointed out as they walked towards the center. That was somewhat necessary since he’d noticed it was starting to melt which probably meant winter was ending. “And you see those tracks? Horses. If we can manage to tame one or two our lives get a hundred times easier.” 

Audrey laughed and leaned against his side. “But it’s still pretty,” she said amusedly. Not that she wasn’t glad for the function too of course, but she wasn’t going to let it take away from the appreciation of the beauty either. 

“Yes, dear. It’s very pretty,” Duke teased with a roll of his eyes. “Now let’s grab some willow bark.” They had spotted a few more medicinal leaves and a few things that Duke thought could be used to season their food that they could experiment with that they would collect on the way back, but this was what they really wanted. Once they had their pockets full of willow bark they stood on the bank of the frozen lake for a few minutes and Duke wrapped his arms around Audrey. “Someday, I’m gonna build us a house…right over there,” he told her pointing at the opposite bank of the lake. 

“A house huh?” she asked with a grin, leaning back against his chest. 

“Yep. With a deck over the water that we can fish from and a nice garden out front and a pasture for our horses,” he told her. 

Audrey could almost see it in her mind’s eye, though her vision was probably different in the details at least than his including a few little ones running around. “It sounds like heaven,” she sighed happily. She knew that it was just a dream. Like Haven being trouble free and throwing a parade. This was still a dangerous place filled with all kinds of predators and Aether all over the place, bears the size of buildings and who knew what else. It was still nice to dream sometimes though. 

They stuck around for a little while longer talking about the big dream, neither of the addressing how it could actually happen, before checking the edge of the woods all the way around the clearing for anything useful and then heading back, stopping to collect what they could and making note of where to find it in the future. Once they got back, they dumped all their findings on the ground and Audrey started making some steaks for lunch while Duke separated it all out. The willow bark had it’s own cubbyhole as did the other medicinal leaves. The seasonings each went in a vertebrae bowl to be ground up, which he went ahead and started on, planning on trying a stew for dinner. It wouldn’t be the best since the didn’t have anything but meat to put in it, but it would be a change from just the simple steaks all the time. Once spring came though and they could start foraging for fruits and vegetables and real spices, he planned to really show off his cooking skills. 

While the meat was cooking he went over what each thing was with Audrey and for the medicinals, what they were good for while they both grabbed a bowl to start grinding seasonings. They hadn’t gotten much until they knew what they liked and after sniffing the ground products they chose one to try for dinner and Duke set that aside. Since stew had to simmer for a long time, Duke started it as soon as they were done eating. Once he had the pot over the fire, he and Audrey started cutting the meat into chunks and threw it in along with a good amount of their chosen seasoning. 

Duke soon realized that they needed a simmer level for their cooking rather than just the boil so he went ahead and started looking for longer forked sticks and soon had another set up just in time. He and Audrey each took an end and then counted down to lift it to the higher set which /should/ put it at a simmer. If not, he could lower it until they got it right. Finding something to cover it was relatively easy. He just broke an end off another of the paddles. After keeping an eye on it for a while he realized that the height it was at was good, so they moved on to other projects. 

Duke got it in his head to see how thick the wall was between this cave and the next and pulled out his new drill and started a hole. Seeing that it was about six inches and that at least the hole didn’t cause any instability, he started planning for a door. Mostly how to do it safely. He would need a few things though. The door would need a frame and it would have to be done in stages, putting the frame in as the dirt was pulled out to prevent any collapse. The whole idea made Audrey nervous, but he promised her that he wouldn’t do it if he couldn’t be sure that it was safe and at the first sign of trouble he would abandon it. At least he had the information he needed to plan.

He suggested that Audrey start moving the moss over to their bed area now that it was stable while he made a few trips to get some more. It was starting to grow around the barrels enough to make it difficult to get to and from them and had even started growing /up/ one of the barrels so he wouldn’t need much more. Two trips with as much as he could carry should do it. Audrey liked that suggestion a lot even with the extra comfort of the bearskin. They would have to find a way to keep it from continuing to grow though, but she was sure that Duke had thought of that. Unless they just planned to keep it cut back which wouldn’t be so bad either. 

It took a little over an hour and a half for Duke to make both trips which netted enough moss for their bed. They left the bearskin off for now though and gave it a good amount of water and then left it alone for the rest of the day so it would root. Duke had also come back with a few large relatively flat rocks. “There isn’t much more we can make without better tools,” Duke told her. “First and foremost…axes.” 

“You know how to make an axe? From stone?” she asked surprised. 

“Nope,” Duke said wryly. “But I’ll figure it out. That’s why I have a few. Theoretically it shouldn’t be too hard, but theory and practice are two very different things.” 

By the time dinner was ready, Duke had completely broken two of the rocks and was no closer to an axe, so as they ate, Audrey suggested, “Maybe start with a chisel instead?” 

Duke considered that before nodding with a chuckle. “Makes sense. Start small and work my way up. I’m sure at least one of those shards will be suitable for a chisel. I’ll look after dinner.” 

“Speaking of dinner, this isn’t bad. I kinda like this seasoning,” she told him. 

“Me too. It’s rather smokey and goes well with the meat,” Duke agreed, putting it on the mental list to collect more of. They would try a new one tomorrow and once they had a few they liked they could start mixing them to find good combinations. 

After dinner, Duke took Audreys suggestion and started trying to figure out a chisel. Thankfully one of the shards was close enough to start with so he just started trying to sharpen it. He’d suspected that sharpening stone would be a pain in the ass and he was right, but he was also persistent. Thankfully the sanding rock seemed to be doing the trick even if it was taking forever. 

In the absence of anything else to do, Audrey went next door to grab one of the other log pieces and started on another barrel. They did still need an untainted saltwater barrel after all. Once they finished the bear, they would have a lot of extra barrels on hand, but they could never have too many barrels. If nothing else, they could turn them over and have something to sit on. She hadn’t gotten much done by the time they were ready for bed, but Duke finally had his chisel and planned to start on the axe tomorrow.


	33. Chapter 33

The next morning, they made a quick trip to the beach to fill up the new barrel before Duke got to work on the axe again and Audrey was, once again, at a loss of what to do so she just went out and collected some firewood. Duke took a break after lunch to teach her how to aim with the bow and arrow and then she started practicing while he continued working on the axe. He knew that he needed to practice too, but he needed an axe more. There were so many projects he wanted to get to that couldn’t go anywhere without it. It ended up taking him the entire day, but he finally got the blade of it finished. He’d chiseled most of the taper down and then sanded it smooth and sharpened it. 

The next day, at Audrey’s request, he taught her how to stretch and cut the sinew to make thread, but told her that he was pretty sure that spring was coming so hats and mittens at this point would be a waste. She pointed out that it didn’t mean she couldn’t practice. Or make sure they had a good stock of thread. He couldn’t really argue with that so left her to it while he went to finish his axe. First step was to make the mounting. He wasn’t about to try and make a channel through the stone to slide the handle into so instead he made a channel in the wood to slide the head onto. Which meant working a basic shape into the stone that would slide in and then sand it smooth. Then he found an appropriate piece of wood and cut the channel, making sure it was a snug fit. The rest of the day was spent sanding down the handle and making sure that was smooth so he didn’t hurt himself and finally he was ready to mount it. 

Once they finished dinner he heated up the glue and coated the mounting with it before hammering it in and then setting it aside for the night. “You really made an axe,” Audrey said, once again awed at her boyfriend’s ingenuity. 

“Now lets just hope it works,” Duke chuckled. “I’ll test it tomorrow.” 

“You know you’ll have to make me one too if it works,” she said amusedly, only partially joking. 

“Yeah, no. Not gonna happen. Not anytime soon at least. We’ll just have to take turns,” he shook his head. He’d wasted a solid two days on that. Three if he counted the day he spent messing up. There was too much else to do. 

“Fair enough. I just felt like a stereotype all day,” she huffed irritably. 

“How so?” Duke asked curiously. 

“You’re working with the tools and I’m sewing like a good little housewife,” she curled her lip in distaste. 

Duke rolled his eyes and realized when he got a glare that was a bad idea and tried a different tactic. “Look, Audrey. You might as well throw those stereotypes out the window. You know full well that’s not the kind of woman I want and I would never try to turn you into it. Sometimes we’re gonna be the stereotype and sometimes we’re gonna be the opposite. I know I’m more of a cook than you are for one thing.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” she relaxed. 

Duke realized he was safe how a reached a hand out to her, pulling her into his lap. “And really…would a good little housewife have been out there with me helping me skin a bear the size of a mountain? Hauling trees around a beach? You’re almost as good with a knife as I am by now. Traditional gender roles don’t exist on this world. We can be anything we want to be. If you want to sew, then sew. If you want to build an axe, have at it. As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.” 

Audrey smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder, knowing that she’d overreacted a bit, and said amusedly, “I think I’ll leave the axe-making to you. Hearing you curse at a chunk of stone for two days straight is enough to tell me I would never have the patience for it.” Duke was the calmest person she’d ever known. If it was enough to make him so openly frustrated, it would drive her insane. “I was thinking of trying my hand at some of those bone knives you mentioned. It would be nice to have some spares.”

“Okay, I’ll give you the basic tutorial and help you pick some pieces in the morning,” he promised. “I’ll probably need your help at some point though to lug some stuff back here.” 

“I can do that. Anything else I can do to help you without an axe?” 

“Peeling branches if you want, but I can handle that if you want to work on other things,” he assured her. 

“Nah, I’ll stay here and work on the knives and maybe practice with the bow a little more,” she decided, guessing that he wouldn’t mind some alone time too. If he had more work for her to do, she would have gone along to help, but not if he just needed to find busy work for her. 

Duke headed for the place the beavers had apparently liked where they got the wood for the barrels and started looking around, finally finding the perfect piece he was looking for. It was about a foot across and relatively uniform. At least far enough that he could use. He laid down to get the measurement, lifted his hand a few inches above his head, and used his knife to make a mark before he pulled out his axe, said a silent prayer that it would work and not fly off the handle, raised it and swung. He grinned when it made a good cut and got to work. It didn’t take long to have that part done and then the harder part. Splitting it down the middle. 

After trying a dozen times to stand it up and it not staying, he thought of an easier way. Well not easier per se, but easier to get right at least. He laid it back down, placed the axe head in the right place, and hammered it in, getting a good split to the wood so he worked his way down and it was perfect. Then he chopped a piece about half the length and did the same thing. He would end up with an extra piece but oh well. The next thing he looked for was considerably bigger. He wanted something at least four feet tall and took a little while to find something that fit the bill and even longer to cut a piece that was again, a little taller than him. That one would have to be dragged back and he would need Audrey’s help The other ones he would be able to manage easily. He went ahead and took them back, being just in time for Audrey pulling lunch off the stove. 

“I wondered if you were going to make it back for lunch,” she chuckled. 

Duke dropped the wood in the corner for now, washed his hands in the wash bucket and sat down to eat. “I wasn’t even paying attention to the time,” he admitted. 

“Neither was I, but my stomach was,” she grinned as she handed him his plate. 

“Mmm. Okay this is great. What seasoning did you use?” he asked once he tried the first bite. “Definitely getting some more of that one.” 

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked him as they ate. 

“Sure did. I brought back what I could, but we have a dragger that I’ll need your help with,” he told her. 

“Okay, no problem. It’s not a whole tree is it?” she asked worriedly. 

“Nope. Just about six and a half feet of one,” he chuckled. 

“Okay, that’s not so bad,” she sighed with relief. “How far?” 

“Just on the other side of the beaver spot, so about fifteen minutes at a normal pace.”

“Definitely doable then. Much better than the three or four miles we were dragging whole trees,” she laughed. 

“You’re telling me,” he agreed. “So how was your morning?” 

“Well I got two knives done. You might want to do some more work on the grips though. I tested them and they cut pretty well. Then I thought about what you said about making a garden in the clearing so I got a trowel made too. I figured bone would be better than wood for that, but I can always do a wood one too if you’d prefer.” 

“Either is fine,” Duke assured her. “But wood is more malleable if you’d rather work with that and will work almost as well for the broad stuff. Thinner stuff like rakes and tillers would be best in bone. It won’t break as easily.” 

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind,” she nodded. “I like getting the practice in with the bone though.” 

“Makes sense,” Duke nodded. 

When they finished eating, Audrey followed him out to check out what they would be dragging. “What’s that gonna be?” she asked curiously. 

“A couch,” he told her. “I figure once it’s done, we can cover it with some of the spare bear hide for comfort.”

“It will be nice to sit on something other than the ground for a change,” she nodded. It made sense that now that the necessities were taken care of they could start working on more luxury items. “What are the other pieces for?” 

“A frame for the doorway between the caves,” he told her as they tied some vines to the log and started dragging it. It took them over half an hour to get it back and inside and they rolled it against the wall in the carving area.


	34. Chapter 34

Duke and Audrey worked on the couch together…after first each creating a saw from the bones of the bear, and they also got the door created between the two caves when they were taking breaks from the couch, using some of the scrap from the big log to make a door between them so as not to lose any heat. It took them a week to get the couch made, using a bit of the glue to hold the bear pelt in place and they finally had a place to sit other than the ground or their raised bed. By the time that was done, they were having a lot more trouble finding clean snow to melt for drinking water and made their first trip back to the clearing since they found it to get water from the lake. 

When they stepped into the clearing they stopped short at the sight of the herd of horses they’d seen signs of before milling around the lake. “What do you think they’ll do if we get close?” Audrey asked, knowing that Duke knew animals and their tendencies much better than she did. 

“Well if they’re anything like horses from back home…aside from being bigger obviously…we should be okay as long as we don’t make too much noise or sudden movements. Just walk slowly and carefully,” Duke told her. “But remember if the bear was anything like back home it wouldn’t have attacked either, so stay on your guard.”

Audrey nodded, pulling her spear from her belt but keeping it upright more like a walking stick. That way it was easy to use if needed without being threatening from the off. She noticed Duke do the same thing as they moved the large barrel between them and each took a handle, walking slowly towards the lake. As soon as they got close the horses scattered, but they could see them watching from the trees. At least they knew now that they weren’t going to attack unprovoked, but their skittishness wasn’t encouraging. “Do you really think we can tame them?” Audrey asked as they used their sticks to break up the thin sheet of ice that was still covering the lake. 

“It’s gonna take time,” Duke shrugged as he tied the line to the handles so they could lower the barrel into the water. “The first step is just to get them used to seeing us. Once the ground is a little clearer and we can start work on a garden up here that’ll help,” he told her. “The more we’re around just going about our business and ignoring them the more comfortable they’ll get and then…maybe.” 

“Yeah the ground is still a little too hard and frozen to get started on the garden,” Audrey nodded. That was one thing she knew at least a little bit about. One of her foster families had a garden and all the kids had been expected to help. “But it shouldn’t be long, and in the meantime, we’ll need to come up here every morning for water anyway.”

“That’s probably best. Start slow. I wonder if there will be any ducks or other birds in this lake once it gets warmer. It would be nice to have eggs,” Duke said thoughtfully. 

“Which means we’ll need to practice more with the bow and arrows if we want to hunt duck too,” Audrey pointed out. They’d gotten a little sidetracked with their projects and barely been getting any practice in the last week. 

“Yeah, we’ll start dedicating the evenings at least to that in the cave and then once we’ve got it down we’ll move outside,” Duke agreed as they each grabbed a handle of the barrel and started heading back. 

They stopped along the way to fill their pockets with their favorite seasonings along with a few more medicinal leaves. They’d had a lot of scraped knuckles, splinters, and minor cuts with all their projects so had used quite a bit, along with a bit of the moss which they had to keep from growing too far anyway. Once they got the water back, they took a quick firewood trip before starting on their next project which was a sort of oven. They wanted to try baking their meat and were hoping they’d be able to scrounge up some other things to bake as spring set in. 

The theory was easy. Just make a wooden box. They just weren’t sure how well it would work. It would end up taking a few days to get it set up, making a raisable door by putting grooves into the sides of the opening. They might have been able to finish it sooner, but after dinner was always dedicated to bow practice now. It was a little over a week since their first water trip to the clearing before the ground was soft enough to start working it, and they’d taken the time to make enough tools, including a tiller. They didn’t need a lot of space, at least for now, so they just tilled a square of about forty yards on each side. That would give them enough to eat along with some variety depending on what they could manage to forage and replant. They still didn’t know what grew naturally here either which was part of the reason they didn’t want to get rid of too much of it. 

Once the ground was ready, they redoubled their efforts to find things to grow there and most of the daylight hours that weren’t spent doing critical tasks was spent checking every plant they could find, sometimes even pulling them up to see what they were if the leaves didn’t make it obvious which was how they’d found a couple different kinds of potatoes, carrots, and radishes and gotten them moved and transplanted to their garden, along with some peas, corn, and a kind of greens that might have been related to collard or mustard greens, but was different enough they couldn’t be sure. They also managed to find some fruit trees and berry bushes. The berry bushes got transplanted to one side of the lake in the clearing, but it was too easy to damage the fully grown fruit trees by moving them so instead they just ate the fruit and took the seeds and planted their own. 

It wasn’t long before the horses got daring enough to be a problem and talk turned to fencing off the garden, including a portion of the natural field which turned out to be wheat, which made them both jump for joy. Wheat meant flour which meant breads and even pies. It would take a little experimentation to get it right, but Duke was more than up to the challenge. Of that and the fence which ended up being relatively simple. They just drove sticks into the ground about seven feet high since that was about the height of the horses and then used vines to tie across every two feet between the top and bottom. The horses weren’t daring enough to try and fight through it. Recognizing the barrier for what it was. Eventually they might have to secure it more as they got bolder, but for now it would work. 

By the time they were running out of bear meat, talk turned more towards hunting again, which was pretty good timing since the other animals seemed to be realizing that the big one was dead and were venturing more into the area. That or the fact that the weather was warming up was bringing them out of more. Either way, they were spotting quite a few different animals out and about. Including one that looked almost like a warthog which Duke immediately named Bacon. That would be their first try. It turned out that their arrows weren’t strong enough to pierce it’s hide from a distance, but they were definitely enough to piss it off and their spears managed to finish the job. It, like most of the animals here, was much bigger than it's earth counterpart and stood chest high to Duke so it would probably feed them for at least two weeks. Maybe more given the extra foods they were harvesting to fill out their diet. 

Duke finally managed to get the hang of making bread, though without yeast it was still flat. That and the fruits and berries to mash up for jam and make pies from, and the vegetables that they were harvesting, and they were eating like kings. At least relative to this world and compared to the winter. Duke was enjoying getting a chance to actually show off his cooking skills and Audrey was more than appreciative. Even of the stuff that didn’t come out well. She was perfectly understanding of the fact that Duke had never cooked like this before over fire, much less making his own flour and such. One of these days they would figure out how to harvest yeast and Duke knew there was a way to pull the sugars out of fruits, but he had no idea what that method was. They would figure it out eventually though. Probably on accident like the ancient humans from earth did. 

The second it was even slightly warm enough, both Duke and Audrey were stripping down to jump in the lake. They had fished it often enough by that point to know that they should be safe from any carnivorous fish and the idea of actually washing for once was something that they had both been dying for. Wiping down with a wet rag would do the job but there was nothing like fully submerging in the water. That and they had some fun swimming and Duke used his freediving skills to explore the dimensions of the lake, being even more careful than usual to avoid the bends since they had no way to treat it here. Once she saw how long he could hold his breath, Audrey asked him to teach her how to do that. He warned that it would take years, but got her started on the breathing exercises.


	35. Chapter 35

It turned out there were something similar to ducks that spent the spring and summer in the lake, but it took a little while to find their nests to swipe eggs and a little while longer to learn how to tell if they were still young enough to eat. Their arrows ended up being strong enough to kill the ducks as long as they weren’t too far away, but Audrey was the only one who could hit them regularly. Duke was better with the more brute strength methods like the spear, but Audrey had him by miles in archery to the point that he rarely even used his bow after a while. 

The horses had gotten to the point of coming to watch them while they were working in the field, but still ran away if they got too close. It wasn’t until summer was coming to an end before they finally let Duke and Audrey touch them. They’d been tossing the horses their food scraps and the failed cooking experiments that they couldn’t eat to try and build some trust and they had made a pact to never try and hunt the horses unless they were really life or death starving and it seemed to help. When they finally let themselves be touched they were given apples to reinforce it and then Duke and Audrey were glad that they had plenty of apples with them because the rest of the horses suddenly wanted in on the game too. Thankfully, it was a rather small herd. Only about ten of them including the two foals that had been born in the spring, but Duke had to revise his idea for making apple pie after dinner. 

As the weather started turning cold again, they started trying to preserve what they could through the winter and a lot of it was trial and error since they weren’t able to create vacuum seals. In the end, over half of what they’d preserved was basically just done by hope and some of it would last and some wouldn’t. At least the flour and wheat was relatively easy and they found uses for their extra barrels. By the time the lake froze over, there was enough snow for them to collect for drinking water again, but they still made a trip to the clearing at least once every few days anyway to see the horses so they wouldn’t have to start over making friends by the time spring came again. 

Most of their meat tended to come to them when they got attacked by predators. Over the summer that had included lynxes, warthogs, a couple foxes, and even another bear which meant making more barrels for brining without losing their current food storage, most of which were stored in their second cave. They had gotten pretty good at making basic clothes like hats and mittens…Duke had at least. Audrey still wasn’t very good at it. She was a much better archer though so she could live with that. Duke even managed to make them something like coats since their old ones were worn down by then. 

It was really more of a wrap with arm holes, but it was plenty warm and he even made them long enough to reach the ground. Their shoes were a little more difficult and at the moment were just wrapped animal hide but they were getting more used to not having the cushioning of soles. They’d tried making wood soles, but that ended up being even less comfortable so they dealt with it. On the plus side they were even more waterproof than their usual shoes and clothes which meant they stayed warmer digging around in the snow. The evenings were usually spent trying to get the hang of making pants which was much more difficult though got a little easier once Audrey had the idea of using something like suspenders to hold them up. Elastic was still a little beyond them and they’d harvested what they could from their old clothes in making the mittens. 

Since they were all set for basic needs and other than firewood which they had stocked up quite a bit on in advance anyway, they didn’t have much to do during the long winter, Duke suggested they get started on a house like he’d promised last year. Unlike last year, Audrey could actually see the possibility now, so she gladly agreed. It would put them closer to their fresh water source which would be a plus, but it would be a longer hike to the ocean. That was only done once a week to replace the brine for the most part though instead of every day so they could deal with it. 

Even Duke had never built a house from scratch so it involved quite a bit of trial and error in making sure that it was sturdy and safe. He was familiar enough with building things on a smaller scale that it was easier than it would have been for most at least. He made full use of both vine ropes and carved slots secured with resin glue to fit together in the process even if it did take much more work. He also probably used more supports than were necessary, but he would rather have too much than not enough. Audrey helped with the work of course, but left the mechanics to Duke. 

It was a very slow process though, even with them using the full logs for the most part. By the time spring was coming in again, they had only managed to get the walls about waist high all around. There was much less time to work on it with the garden to tend to, but they could also work later so that helped. They also had access to clay now which they carried up in barrels to seal up the spots that weren’t quite uniform and reinforce the thinner areas. As the walls got higher, they had to figure out levers and pulleys as they went along which slowed them down even more and then figuring out a roof was an adventure. There was no way they could use logs for it. They would be too heavy. 

They did end up using some thinner logs that Duke made slots in to make a checkerboard pattern and then used a combination of clay and pine resin to seal vines together to make up the rest. They got that finished before they started on the fireplace and chimney which involved bringing up a /lot/ of rocks that they used the clay to seal together and stacked up high enough that it was a few feet above the edge of the roof. They had made it only as tall as it needed to be, giving Duke about two inches of leeway at the shortest point of the roof. The tallest point was about four feet higher though. They wanted plenty of slope for the snowy winters. 

By the time the fireplace was done, with plenty of room for the different levels and apparatuses for the stove including holes drilled into the stone to hold them securely, the roof was still holding, and they were ready to move in. Three years after they’d started. Duke had even managed to figure out hinges for a real door. Still made of branches tied together with vines of course, but thanks to the claybeds it was actually sealed. For security purposes it opened out instead of in obviously and it still had a dirt floor. They would work on the floor as they went. The threshold of the door and the bottom of the fireplace were raised enough to allow space for it. 

Instead of dragging their heavy couch the two miles partially uphill, they decided to just make a new one. They had plenty of scraps from the housebuilding scattered around the area that were a good size for one and more than enough bear hide, averaging about three kills a year…always the same way. The only way they had a chance against them. Duke phasing a spear through the brain. There was some debate on whether to get furniture or a floor done first before they decided on furniture. They’d lived with a dirt floor for years now, so they could manage a little longer. First though, they had to get the rest of their stuff moved in. 

They had long since figured out a wheelbarrow to help with the house so the moss for the bed was loaded up into that by Audrey along with most of their smaller items from the two cubby units. All of their old clothes were nothing more than rags by now if there was anything left at all, but they still kept them. They still had their uses. They rarely threw anything away. While she was taking that, Duke was taking the cubby units themselves. They were heavy, but he didn’t want to make more trips than they had to, so he took both at once, knowing that he wouldn’t have been able to manage that when they first got here. They had both put on more than a little bit of muscle. The barrels started going next and they were up to fifteen by that point, but only about half of them were currently filled. The empty ones they could take as many as handles they could grab at once and got all those in one trip. The last seven they had to take one at a time though. 

They left the clothesline since Duke planned to build a better one now that they had more room and resources, and a lot of the overflow storage. They could come back and get what they needed as they needed it, at least until they got some storage built at home. There was no point cluttering up their house with it. All the tools went of course, but the raw materials would just be fetched as needed, made easier by the wheelbarrow. They had still yet to get any of the horses to pull anything unfortunately, or let them ride, but they were getting there. They were letting themselves be led now and would carry some things. As long as they didn’t have to leave the immediate area of the clearing that was. They were very stubborn about that.


	36. Chapter 36

Once they got their couch made, they worked on raising their bed to a more comfortable height, which also served to give a sort of box to slow down the mold growing outside of it. They’d also made pillows over the years so it was looking more like a real bed once that was done. Spare barrels were turned over as tables when they didn’t have too much meat to brine, but their next project was making real tables. A coffee table and a kitchen table. The shelving cubbies were their current end tables, one next to the bed and one by the couch. They had also been sanded down during the bored times when the cold nights had them taking shelter early. 

They had gotten in right at the start of winter, not long after the first snow, so they kept busy during the winter with making their furniture and then their floor. As each section of floor was done, they just lifted the furniture onto it. While Duke vetoed the idea of carpeting it with the bearskin due to how hard it would be to keep clean, he did suggest a bearskin rug instead that was put in front of the couch and the coffee table was put on top of it. “This is really starting to look like a home now isn’t it?” Audrey said happily as she curled up in Duke’s arms on the couch. 

“And it only took us how many years to get here?” Duke asked with a chuckle. 

“This has been home for a while though,” Audrey said thoughtfully. “You know, I barely think about Earth at all anymore?” She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. 

“Me either,” Duke admitted. “Usually just when I’m having trouble with something and wish I had some tool or machine to make it easier.” 

“Are you happy here?” Audrey couldn’t help but ask. 

“Overall…yeah,” Duke nodded, pressing a kiss to her head. “I have you. Aside from that first difficult winter, we’ve been relatively comfortable. I have plenty of projects to keep me busy. The only thing that could make it better is if I had a boat and could get on the ocean, even if it was just sometimes.” 

“Why don’t you make that your next big project then,” Audrey suggested. 

“There’s too much other stuff to do. I want to get something up here for storage. A deck over the water like I promised. Figuring out some kind of forge to melt down our metal…”

“And all of that can wait,” Audrey interrupted. “Half an hour isn’t that far to go for supplies and now that we have the wheelbarrow it’s even easier. We can keep fishing from the bank like we have been and we’re managing just fine with the stone, wood, and bone tools. It’s not just about survival anymore. We’re practically living in luxury now. You need to do what makes you happy too and I know how much you love the sea.” 

“You’re sure you wouldn’t mind?” Duke asked. “It’ll probably take almost as long as the house.” 

“I’m positive,” she assured him. “And if there is something we need here that I can’t handle on my own, you can just take a break to help with it. It’s not like that won’t be an option,” she pointed out. 

“Yeah. That’s true,” Duke nodded. “Okay, I’ll start on a boat then. But not until spring. It’ll need to be built on the water. You wanna help or do you have a project of your own in mind?”

“I’ll probably help, but I did have a project in mind first though since you won’t be starting that until spring,” she told him. 

“What’s that?” Duke asked. 

“A bigger cart for the horses to pull. I think we’re getting closer to getting them to pull things, so even if we can’t get them to leave the clearing, we can still load it up with wood and stuff at the edges and get it out here easier.”

“And if we can coax them into leaving the clearing, we can take all the barrels to the ocean at once when we need extra brining,” Duke nodded. “Okay, we can work on that for the rest of the winter. It shouldn’t take more than a month.” 

“And by then we should be ready to start on your boat,” she said with a smile. 

“We got a little side-tracked, but what about you? Are you happy here?” Duke asked her, running his hand along her arm. 

“I think I am, yeah. There are things I still miss from home, but the list is pretty short and mostly frivolous,” she chuckled. 

“Like what?” Duke asked amusedly. 

“Like chocolate, silk, cake, butter, little things like that,” she shrugged. 

“Well the chocolate I can’t really do much about anytime soon and given that silk comes from spiders and as much bigger as everything is here…”

“Yeah, I’m good without silk thanks,” Audrey shuddered. “I can handle the bears the size of skyscrapers, the anaconda sized garter snake we found that time, the rats the size of St. Bernards, but the first time I see a spider the size of a dog, I /will/ go pure girl on you and start screaming for you to come take care of it.” 

Duke laughed heartily and hugged her. “And I promise I won’t hold it against you. We’re all allowed at least one thing.” 

“At least we know that if there were any here we’d have seen them by now,” she said relieved. 

“One of the perks of living in a colder environment. Fewer insects,” Duke nodded. In fact, they hadn’t seen any insects at all now that he thought of it. 

“Now I’m really glad we didn’t head south.” 

“As for the other things, we might be able to manage butter soon, and milk and cream,” he told her. 

“How?” she asked curiously. 

“The horses are comfortable enough with us by now that we can probably start milking them the next time one weans a calf,” Duke told her. 

“Horse milk? Is that…safe? I mean, I know cow milk and even goat milk, but…”

“There are places in the world where people drink horse milk,” he told her. “And if you really don’t like it, we can always see about taking a trip into the mountains and trying to catch a goat or two.” 

“Nah, I’ll be good with horse milk. It’s just not something I’ve ever really thought about, you know?” 

“It’s not something most people think about,” he shrugged. “But once we have that we can figure out butter and maybe even cheese though that’ll take a little more trial and error. But once I have butter, I might even be able to figure out a cake, so that solves two of your wants in one.” There would still be key ingredients he was missing, but he could try and work out substitutes. 

“That would be amazing,” she said with a happy sigh. “But really all I need to be happy is this,” she assured him. “The little stuff like that would just be bonuses. As long as I have you, I’m good.” 

“And all I need to be happy is you,” he said as he leaned down for a loving kiss. 

“And a boat,” Audrey joked. 

“Just a little. You make me like ninety five percent happy. The boat would just be the other five,” he chuckled. 

She pretended to think about that for a few minutes before nodding. “I guess I can live with that,” she said amusedly as she kissed his nose and settled back into his arms. 

Little did they know, the boat was going to end up being put off for quite a while. It wasn’t long after they finished their cart when something dawned on Audrey and she spent a few days lost in thought. Duke left her to it for a while, but then he started to get worried and had to ask. “Okay, what’s bothering you? You’ve been quiet for days.” 

“I think I’m pregnant,” she said bluntly. 

Duke froze and just blinked at her as he turned that over in his head before taking a deep steadying breath. “Okay…why do you think that and how sure are you?” 

“Well I know we don’t really keep track of time much, but I haven’t had a period since not long after winter started and winter is almost over. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’ve been eating a lot more lately, and I know you’ve noticed that my breasts have been tender the last couple months.”

“You’ve been sleeping more too, now that I think about it. Not a /lot/ more, but…” Duke stopped and took a few more deep breaths for calm. “So…you’re pregnant…we’re having a baby.” He said as much to himself as to her. To wrap his mind around the idea. “I guess it has been more than four and a half years,” he realized. 

“Yeah, I kinda forgot about that and we haven’t been keeping track of time anyway and…” she trailed off, biting her lip nervously, not sure how he was going to take this once he had it in his head. 

“Okay, so we need to start working on a cradle or a crib or both, see what we can work out for diapers, um…what am I not thinking of? I’m sure there are things I’m not thinking of…Bottles, pacifiers, clothes, um…”


	37. Chapter 37

Audrey sat across his lap and kissed him deeply before resting her head against his as his arms wrapped around her. “I’m gonna have to breastfeed anyway so we don’t need to worry about bottles, pacifiers aren’t necessary, until he or she starts crawling we can just get away with wrapping them in a blanket and even when they are, you’re getting good at clothes. We have plenty of time to make a cradle and a crib and even figure out something for diapers. We’ll be fine,” she assured him, still waiting for the emotional response, but knowing that needed to get out of the way first. She loved how his first instinct was always to take care of the practical needs, but she needed to know how he really felt about this. 

“Okay…yeah…we have some time before it’s born…oh god…I’m gonna have to deliver it,” Duke’s eyes went wide as that dawned on him and his brain got caught in a loop. He was usually good at going with the flow and figuring things out as he went, but this was different. Even back on Earth he could have handled this because at least he could go find a book telling him how to deliver a baby or find video tutorials online or even ask a doctor, but here…he had no idea what to do and winging it with the lives of his love and his child was about the most terrifying thing he could imagine. 

“Sweetheart, women were having babies long before doctors or hospitals existed,” she told him. She was pretty damn terrified of that prospect too, but they couldn’t both be freaking out. Usually if there was a freakout he was the one helping her through it so she would have to suck it up this time. “I had a friend who was pregnant in college and she watched enough birth videos for me to have a good idea how it will go and I can talk you through it,” she said with forced calm. “And again…we have time.” 

“Right…okay…I can do this,” Duke said shakily, breaking himself out of the worst-case scenario loop it was in. “/We/ can do this,” he said a little more steadily. 

“I’m sorry,” she sighed, unable to hold it back anymore. “If I had remembered the time limit and kept better track of the time and…”

Duke cut her off with a loving kiss. “Don’t apologize,” he said gently brushing his hand down her cheek and cupping her jaw. “First of all, I knew as much as you did and could have done the same, but…it’s okay. We’ll be okay and we’re having a baby,” he smiled brightly. “And yeah, it scares the hell out of me. Even back on Earth it would probably scare the hell out of me, but…but I’m gonna be a dad and that’s…” he kissed her again unable to find the words for what he wanted to get across. 

“So…you’re okay with this?” she asked hopefully, running her fingers through his long hair. 

“Absolutely,” he breathed out, trailing his hand down her side and bringing it to rest over her barely protruding stomach. 

“Hang on,” Audrey had a light bulb moment. “Howard…maybe he has some medical training…”

“If his ‘programming’ will let him help,” Duke muttered in irritation. 

“It’s worth a shot,” Audrey shrugged as she got up off his lap and went to pull out the crystal and core, taking them in her hands and willing Howard into existence. 

“Why have you called me here?” he asked as he appeared. 

Audrey wondered if that was a programmed response as she asked, “Do you have any medical training?” 

Howard tilted his head curiously, looking between the two of them. “I do not. Neither of you seem in need of medical aid.” 

“She’s pregnant,” Duke said bluntly. “And I have no idea how to deliver a baby.”

“I see. We are still in the void?” Howard asked looking around the comfortable home confusedly. “How long has passed since you last called me?” 

“We’re still in the void, yeah. And it’s been almost five years,” Duke told him. 

“And you’ve just now become with child?” Howard asked curiously. “If my calculation is right, since James, you should have been able to conceive for at least ten years now.”

“Wait, huh?” Audrey asked confused. “What do you mean able to conceive since James?” 

“I see Charlotte did not educate you on your species,” Howard sighed. While general information was in his programming to provide, this was not something he particularly wanted to be discussing. 

“What about her species?” Duke asked impatiently. 

“Since your kind have evolved to be immortal, there have been further evolutions to prevent the population from expanding too rapidly. Once you’ve given birth, you are unable to conceive again for five decades,” he explained. 

“Oh,” she said blankly. 

“Well at least this means we don’t have to choose between celibacy and drowning in children,” Duke joked to lighten the mood. 

Audrey snorted in amusement. “There is that.” She turned her attention back to Howard. “Anything else about us I should know about?” 

“Us?” Duke asked confused. 

“Oh…right…I guess I forgot to tell you. Apparently when we linked, it was strong enough to make you fully one of us,” she said sheepishly. There had been so much going on back then that it had just slipped her mind. 

“I wonder if that’s why we haven’t been getting the backlash like you had with William like when one of us gets hurt,” Duke said thoughtfully. 

“That is likely,” Howard said trying to get their attention back to the subject. “The stronger a link is the less likely that there are side effects.”

“Okay, then what she said, is there anything else about /our/ species we should know?” Duke asked. 

“You are more resistant to illnesses and heal slightly faster from injuries than humans. That and the fertility period are the only differences,” he told them. 

“Okay so since that’s settled…is there anything you can tell us about this pregnancy or how to deliver the baby or anything like that?” Audrey asked, getting back to the subject. 

“Only that it will function the same was as with humans. I know no more on the subject than the average human,” Howard told them, still trying to get his bearings and now that they were apparently finished with their questions he asked, “You are certain we are still in the void?” 

“The same place we’ve been for the last five years,” Duke said with a roll of his eyes. 

“Why?” Audrey asked, realizing that he seemed to be surprised for some reason. 

“I’m not sensing the normal toxins in the air. It is almost as clean as Earth now.” 

“That’s weird,” Audrey said confused, trying to think what would be causing it. 

“Now that you mention it, I haven’t really seen any of the black goo in a while either,” Duke pointed out. “It used to be everywhere in the caves, but it seems to have disappeared.” That was the main reason that he’d chosen the cave he did for their first home. The lack of Aether in it. 

“That should not be possible,” Howard said curiously. 

“Well I don’t know of any way to figure out what happened, do you?” Audrey asked. 

“I do not,” he admitted. 

“Then there’s no point worrying about it,” Duke shrugged. “But we’re definitely still in the void. The difference in the plants and animals proves that much.” 

“I see…If there is nothing else you need from me…” he said leadingly and when they both shook their heads he disappeared, and Audrey put the core and crystal back where they came from. 

“So we’re on our own,” Duke sighed. For a brief moment he’d had hope. 

“Seems like it,” Audrey said resignedly. “But we’ve been on our own for years now and we’ve done just fine,” she reminded him. “There’s nothing we can’t handle as long as we’ve got each other.”

Duke smiled and pulled her back into his lap. “You’re not wrong there,” he said with a smile, pressing a kiss to her lips. “So what do you say we make the crib about the same size as a twin bed so we can just take off the bars as he or she grows up?” 

“That seems like the most practical way to do it, yeah,” Audrey agreed. “I don’t think we should use the moss yet though. Not until they’re older. It might not be safe for the immune system, being a fungus and all.” 

“I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t be, but better safe than sorry, yeah,” Duke nodded. “We’ll just double up on the fur for the bedding?” 

“That works,” Audrey agreed. “But we should be good with only one layer for the cradle.” 

“And we’ll put the crib on the opposite side of the fireplace from our bed?” Duke suggested so the baby would still get enough of the heat instead of being all the way across the room. 

“That’s a good idea,” Audrey nodded. “Would it be weird if we named him Nathan for a boy?” she asked hesitantly. 

“Not at all,” Duke shook his head. “He was my best friend and like I said before, he’ll always be a part of us. I think it’s perfect.” 

“So Nathan Duke Crocker for a boy then?” she asked, slipping his name in there too. 

“I like it,” Duke grinned. 

“And what about Charlotte for a girl? For my mother?” she suggested. 

“That works,” Duke said thoughtfully before adding. “Maybe Gloria for a middle name?” He wasn’t really close to many people but that old lady had managed to worm her way into his heart. Plus it was a pretty name. 

“Ooh I like that name. And it’s very appropriate. How about Gloria Charlotte instead of the other way around.”

“Perfect,” Duke agreed. “That was easy,” he chuckled. He’d heard horror stories about picking names. 

“Yeah, it was. Guess it just proves that we’re on the same wavelength,” Audrey said snuggling happily into his arms.


	38. Chapter 38

The next morning they picked out a good piece of wood for a cradle and Audrey wanted to carve that out since Duke would be the main one in charge of the crib, so Duke let her and just went looking for pieces for the crib. They had a lot of pieces laying around that was scrap from the couch and other furniture they’d made so it was relatively easy. The most time-consuming part was sanding everything down smooth which Audrey helped with once she was done with the cradle which also had to be sanded smooth. They didn’t usually bother with most things, but obviously this was different. 

It only took a few days to get ready, but they both felt much better once it was, despite the fact that they still had probably six months or more. When they got out to start working the garden, Duke started trying to get her to take it easy, but she put a stop to that. She promised that if she started having problems she would do what she needed to do, but until then it was perfectly safe for her to keep going as normal. She did agree not to do any heavy lifting at least, though there was a bit of a debate on what was considered heavy. 

As the pregnancy moved along, and especially once the baby started kicking, Duke could often be found with a hand over her stomach in their quiet moments and had even started sleeping like that. They both often joked about having a quintaped based on the amount of kicking it was doing. Once it got towards the middle of summer and Audrey was huge, Duke was doing more and more of the daily work, but he didn’t complain a bit. Whenever Audrey got mopey about not being able to help and being a burden, Duke would sit her down and explain that she was growing a human being inside of her. Their child. That was a lot harder job than anything he was doing.

She could still often be found waddling around outside doing the little she could still manage, but mostly just spending time with the horses who she found much more attentive and even protective since she got pregnant. She was even able to get one of them to start pulling the cart, but only if she was walking in front. Every time she stepped out the door lately, there was at least one horse accompanying her. Unless she was inside the fenced off garden and then they waited outside of it for her. She was pretty sure they would even let her ride now, but she was in no shape to even try and get up that high even if it would be safe. She could barely reach the back of the shortest horse when she reached up as high as she could and most of them were even taller than that. 

What really surprised her was the lynx that started to attack one day while she was fishing in the lake, but then stopped. Audrey was just reaching for her spear as the huge cat got within pouncing range, but then it just sniffed at her and turned and walked away. Duke nearly had a heart attack when she told him about it and tried to ban her from leaving the house without him, but she refused that, pointing out that for one thing, apparently she was off limits to the predators at the moment and for another she had a whole herd of horses guarding her. The lynx wouldn’t have gotten any closer even if she hadn’t gotten her spear since she was surrounded anyway. She did realize that she probably shouldn’t have told him about the incident though. 

They had decided to use their old first blanket for the birth. Audrey didn’t want to ruin any of the nice ones, so once they guessed it was getting close, Duke retrieved it from their storage cave, cleaned it thoroughly in the lake and then boiled it in the stew pot, one end at a time, before laying it on the floor in front of the fire where Audrey wanted to give birth. It was the end of summer and she was pushing the wheelbarrow through the garden while Duke loaded it up with the harvest when her water broke and he rushed to help her back to the house. 

He grabbed the pillows from the bed to put behind her back and dumped everything off the coffee table to lay on it’s side behind her for support, so she was partially sitting. It was warm enough still that the fire wasn’t needed at least. They had managed to make a handful of diapers out of the flannel scraps sewed up with beach sand inside since it was plenty absorbent, so Duke got one of those out along with a small cut piece of their best bear hide for a blanket, the remnants of a t-shirt to wipe the baby off, and one of the clamps he’d made for the cord. They’d long made a checklist for this part. 

Once it was all ready, Audrey told him, “Go ahead out and finish the harvest. It’s going to be a while.”

“No, I can stay,” he shook his head as she doubled up with another contraction, squeezing his hand tightly. 

Once it was over she reached up to brush her hand down his cheek. “I appreciate that, Duke. Really. But we need to get that harvest in and my contractions are still over ten minutes apart. Once they’re five minutes apart, you can stay. Deal?” 

Duke sighed heavily, but knew she was right. They needed to start storing food for winter even more urgently now with the baby about to be born. Audrey would need to keep eating more for nursing. “Okay, but I’ll come back to check on you often, okay? And I’ll keep an ear out if you yell for me,” he said worriedly before heading back to the garden. He didn’t think he’d ever worked so fast in his life though and he came back in to check on her every ten minutes or so. 

He didn’t even bother putting the food away, just dumping the wheelbarrow inside the door whenever it got full. It was four hours and the sun was starting to set before she told him that her contractions were down to five minutes apart and he took a few minutes to start the fire for the night before settling beside her. He wouldn’t need to move until she was ready to start pushing. Until then he would just be support. He was really regretting how strong she’d gotten since they’d been here right about now though and wondered if he would even be able to use his hand to deliver the baby. He knew he’d manage though, no matter how much it hurt. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d pushed through pain and definitely wouldn’t be the last. 

Once she said that she was ready to start pushing, he pressed one more kiss to her sweaty forehead and moved down between her legs, cleaning the area with a warm wet cloth just as he saw the baby’s head starting to crest. “I can see it,” he told her. “You’re doing great, sweetheart. Just a little more,” he coaxed, putting his hand under the baby’s half out head. Two more contractions and the head was free, and then the shoulders and from there the baby just slid out. “It’s a boy,” he said as he grabbed the clamp and then used his sterilized knife to cut the cord as the baby let out it’s first cry while he wiped it down. 

Audrey didn’t think anything of it when she still felt the urge to push. She knew that she still needed to pass the placenta anyway. It wasn’t until she heard the, “Holy crap,” from Duke that she started to wonder. 

“What?” she asked worriedly as he set the wrapped baby on the floor to the side. 

“There’s another head,” he told her, a little more calm this time. He’d proved that he could do this. He just had to do it again. “Just…don’t push for a sec,” he said as he got up and ran over to grab another of the baby blankets they’d cut, a diaper, and a clamp. Not that the first baby had a diaper on yet either, but it was right there in the same area so it didn’t lose him any time. 

“Easy for you to say,” Audrey grunted as she tried to hold back from pushing.


	39. Chapter 39

He was only gone for a minute and then he was back and ready for number two. “Okay, whenever you’re ready, sweetheart.” It didn’t take long for baby number two to be out and crying as he cleaned her up. “It’s a girl,” he told her happily as he set her next to her brother to get ready for the placenta. “Oh god…”

“I swear to god Duke Crocker if there’s a third baby in there you’re never touching me again,” Audrey growled. 

“No, no, no,” Duke shook his head. “This is just gross is all.” Both placentas passed quickly and he rolled them up in the blanket they were going to be throwing away now anyway once he nudged her off of it. He handed her both babies, with a kiss to all three heads before he used the warm rag that he’d pulled from the boiling water to clean her genitals and then finally went to sit beside her, pulling her and the babies into his arms. “You did amazing, sweetheart. I love you so much. Thank you,” he whispered lovingly as he blinked the tears from his eyes. 

“You didn’t do so bad yourself,” she huffed a laugh, not bothering to fight the tears streaming down her cheeks. 

“And yet, once again, I had the easy part,” he said barely taking his eyes off his children. 

After a few minutes, they both started to cry again and Audrey said, “They’re probably hungry, as she started to shift so they could eat.

“Here, let me get the diapers on them first,” Duke suggested, as he gently took the closest one from her, not sure which one it was until he opened the blanket. “Hey there Gloria,” he cooed as he grabbed the diaper while Audrey did the same with Nathan. “I’m your daddy,” he told her as he fastened it, which had been another adventure until he had the idea of buttons, not able to manage safety pins. He’d even put a few different button holes to be used as they grew. 

Once the diapers were on and they were wrapped back up in their blankets, Duke helped Audrey up off the floor and to the bed on her shaky legs, each of them holding a baby, so that she could nurse more comfortably from there. Once she was settled and had a baby on each breast, she said worriedly, “I just hope I have enough milk for two.”

“Audrey, your body knew there would be two even if we didn’t. I’m sure it’ll be fine. And even if it’s not, remember Bessie lets us milk her now even with Junior being weaned so we can always supplement if needed.”

Audrey snorted. “I still can’t believe you named the horse Bessie,” she said amusedly. “You’re lucky she doesn’t know the meaning of that name or she’d probably kick you.”

“Probably,” Duke laughed. They hadn’t named most of the horses, but Duke started calling that one Bessie when they started getting milk from her and all the foals were called Junior until they grew up. “We need to get a second cradle and crib made,” Duke realized. 

“Yeah, but they’ll be fine sharing for a few days. They’re tiny and we made them big enough,” Audrey said exhaustedly and blissfully. 

“Will you be okay if I go ahead outside and grab some wood for them?” 

“Why don’t you wait until morning,” she told him. “It’s the middle of the night.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Duke sighed. He hadn’t realized it was that late but now that she mentioned it, he was pretty exhausted too. Once both babies were fed and burped, he took them to put them in their cradle next to the bed, starting with Nathan. Now that he’d had a chance to pay attention, he’d noticed that Nathan seemed to have Audrey’s blonde hair while Gloria had his dark hair so it would be easier to tell them apart. “Come see Daddy, little man and let’s get you to bed hmm?” he said, bouncing his son gently in his arms before laying him down and then going to get Gloria to do the same. Apparently, being born was rather exhausting because they were both out like lights before he even laid them down. 

Duke climbed into bed with Audrey and pulled her gently into his arms. “There aren’t even words for how amazing you are,” he whispered in her ear and pressed a tender kiss to her neck. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Duke. Always,” she slurred sleepily as she drifted off and Duke wasn’t far behind her. 

They didn’t get to sleep for long though before the babies were crying again. When Audrey went to get up with a groan, Duke stopped her. “Shh. You stay there. I’ll get them.” He may not be able to help with the feeding, but he could at least help her out by doing the rest. He brought them to her one at a time and then sat with her as she fed them, and he burped one while she burped the other and then he started changing their diapers, using the fabric scraps for wipes. Once they were both cleaned and changed, he put them back to bed, pressing a kiss to each tiny head as he laid them down and then went to wash out the diapers in the new dedicated diaper cleaning barrel and hung them up on the inside clothesline in front of the fire to dry before climbing back into bed for a few more hours. 

The next time they woke up it was morning, and while Audrey was feeding them, Duke went out to get the wood to work on the second cradle and crib. When he walked out he found himself surrounded by horses who sniffed and inspected him and then seemed rather annoyed. It took him a few minutes to figure out why and then he laughed. The last couple years whenever they had a new foal born they brought it over to meet them and they wanted to meet his babies now. “They’re eating right now. I’ll bring them out soon. I promise,” he told the horses despite knowing that they didn’t understand him. At least they moved to let him get to the wood and he just took the piece for the cradle inside for now. He’d get the rest for the other crib once he’d appeased the horses. 

When he told Audrey about the encounter, she thought it was hilarious and had to see this for herself, so once they were done eating and changed, Duke took Nathan from her and then helped her up with his free hand while she carried Gloria and they both headed outside. She was a little steadier on her feet now thankfully and they didn’t go far. They just stepped outside the door and the horses all took turns coming up to sniff at the babies before turning and going about their business. Audrey was still laughing as she took Nathan from Duke and went back inside. 

Duke was in before long with an armload of sticks for the crib and just needed to go get one more long thin piece for the bottom. When he got back to find Audrey starting breakfast he winced. He’d gotten so involved in making sure the babies had what they needed that he’d forgotten to feed their mother. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think…”

“Shh,” she cut him off. “I’m perfectly capable of putting some jam on bread to feed myself,” she chuckled. “But you should sit down and eat too before you get to work.” 

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed, joining her at the table leaning his foot over to rock the cradle gently as he ate. Once he was done he realized something else he hadn’t done yet and took the blanket wrapped mess from the birth outside and carried it to the edge of the woods and tossed it. Far away from the house, in the same area they always dumped their waste bucket which he did next. Then he dumped and refilled both wash buckets, the normal one and the diaper one, and then the drinking water. 

By then the babies were ready to eat again and he helped Audrey get them both settled before he finally got to work, starting with the cradle since they would be using them more until they got a little bigger.


	40. Chapter 40

Once Audrey had them fed and changed and laid back down in the current cradle, she got started on the food that he’d just dumped by the door while she was in labor and pulled a chair over to start sorting through it. “I can…” he started to object. 

“Duke…sweetheart,” she interrupted. “I’m fine. There is a lot that needs to be done and you’re only one person. Yes, I’m too tired and weak still to do the heavy stuff, but this I can do. Relax.” 

Duke realized that he was being silly, but after seeing what she went through yesterday and with her having to take the bulk of the baby care right now since he couldn’t feed them, he was feeling a little inadequate. “Okay, but just promise you’ll let me know if you need help with anything?” 

“I promise,” she assured him. “In fact, if you wouldn’t mind dragging the vegetable barrels over here for me?” 

“Absolutely,” Duke said, jumping up to do just that. They were up to over thirty barrels now and even had lids for most of them and he was glad that he’d built the house so much bigger than they’d thought they’d need. Especially now with two babies. By the next time they woke up to eat, he was done with the carving of the cradle and just needed to sand it down and Audrey was done with the sorting of the vegetables. 

While she was feeding them, Duke started on some stew for lunch and dinner and had just gotten everything thrown in and had it on to boil by the time the babies finished eating. He took one of them from Audrey, Gloria he noticed, to change her while Audrey changed Nathan and he decided that he needed a break from work to just hold his babies for a little while and sat down on the couch cuddling one in each arm. Audrey started shelling peas as she watched them with a loving smile on her face, glad to give Duke the time with their children that she got every time they ate. “We sure do make beautiful babies, don’t we?” Duke said happily. 

“We sure do,” Audrey smiled brightly. “They’re perfect.” 

He cuddled with them for a little while longer before he put them back down. He was determined that they would be able to sleep in their own cradles tonight. Even with as small as they were it was still a relatively tight fit in one. They knew they could put one in the crib for now, but they wanted them closer at hand. Duke’s foot absentmindedly rocked the cradle as he sanded down the other one smooth, starting with the inside so it could be used sooner. 

Once she was done with the peas, Audrey knew it wouldn’t be long before they were up wanting to be fed again so to kill the time, she went and grabbed the paints that they’d mixed up from berries for this occasion, thinking they’d only need one of them, but grabbed both the pink and blue ones. She pulled the cradle they were currently in away from Duke’s foot so it would be still and she started painting ‘Nathan’ in blue along the side and then went to the side of the one Duke was currently making, the side he’d already sanded down, and painted ‘Gloria’ in pink and she finished just in time before they woke up. 

Once the babies were done eating and in their separate cradles now, Duke was ladling the stew into bowls for their lunch, making sure to give Audrey a generous helping of meat in hers. He still had one side of the outside to sand down for Gloria’s cradle but he could do that the next time they were eating or if Audrey was holding them for a while. After lunch Audrey asked Duke, “You want to take over the vegetables for a while and I’ll get some sanding done for the crib? My fingers are starting to cramp.”

“Absolutely,” Duke easily agreed. “We don’t really need to worry about the crib so urgently though if you’d rather rest.” 

Audrey considered it for a moment before nodding. “Okay, yeah. I think I will take a nap if you don’t mind.” 

Duke chuckled and pulled her in for a lingering kiss. “Sweetheart you could do nothing but sleep for the next week and I wouldn’t mind a bit. Not after those beautiful babies you just gave me. You’ve more than earned it.” 

“I do so love you, Duke Crocker,” she whispered brushing her hand over his cheek. 

“And I love you, Audrey…Crocker?” he asked hopefully, getting a nod and a grin, which he returned. “Now go get some rest, wife of mine.” 

“As you wish, husband dearest,” she grinned wider, giving him another tender kiss before she went to bed and he got started on getting the vegetables ready to store. He really should be out in the garden, but he couldn’t bring himself to go far right now. One day wouldn’t hurt anything. 

Audrey slept until the babies woke up again and Duke brought them to her so she could feed them and he finished sanding down Gloria’s cradle while they ate and by the time they were done it was all ready and he could get started on his next, super easy, project. He’d wanted to wait until they were born so he could get the positioning right with their weight and started on the hands-free slings to carry them. He tied a knot and put it over his shoulders and then took one of the babies from Audrey to put in it, keeping his hands just underneath him in case it gave. He had to adjust it a few times before it was a comfortable fit for both him and the baby, but once it was set, he heated up the glue to paint the knot in and keep it secure. He had Audrey stand up and adjusted the other one to her comfort and that only took about ten minutes each. By the time they finished dinner the glue would be set enough for them to start using them and with the different lengths one of them could even use both in a pinch. 

By silent agreement, after dinner they put all work aside and just cuddled as a family on the couch. They were both itching to show off their babies if only they had someone to show them off too before Audrey remembered that they did. She handed Nathan to Duke and went to grab the core and crystal to call Howard out, getting the standard, “Why have you brought me here?” response. 

“We thought you might want to meet our babies?” Audrey said as she sat down next to Duke and took Gloria from him this time. 

“Twins?” Howard said, eyes softening at the sight of them. “May I?” he asked hopefully and Duke only hesitated a moment before handing his son over. 

“This one is Nathan Duke Crocker and Audrey’s holding Gloria Charlotte Crocker,” Duke told him. 

“They’re beautiful. You probably don’t know this, but twins are rare on your homeworld. So much so that entire towns join the celebrations for their birth,” Howard said as he bounced the baby.

“We didn’t know that,” Audrey said with a bright smile. That just made her babies all the more special. 

Howard handed Nathan back to Duke and held out his arms towards Audrey in question and she nodded and lifted Gloria up for him to take. “Gloria Charlotte…your mother would have been honored,” Howard told her. 

“I hope so,” Audrey smiled. 

“She would have been proud of the life you’ve made for yourself here, under some very difficult circumstances,” Howard added. 

“I couldn’t have done it without Duke,” Audrey said leaning against his side as his free arm wrapped around her and he kissed her head. 

“And I couldn’t have done it without you,” he returned. 

“I do wish I could be of more help getting you home,” Howard said regretfully. 

“That’s okay,” Audrey assured him. “This is kinda home now anyway.” 

“Yes, I can see that,” he said looking around at the nice home they’d made as he handed Gloria back to Audrey. “Thank you for bringing me to meet them.”

“I don’t suppose babysitting is part of your programming?” Duke mostly joked. 

“Unfortunately, not,” Howard said with a sigh, wishing, not for the first time, that he had wider parameters. 

“You can stick around and chat for a little while if you want,” Audrey told him before he could disappear again. 

“I’m afraid my ability to manifest is limited due to the corruption in my program,” he said sadly. “You may feel free to call on me again if you have more questions or need assistance.” He disappeared a moment later. 

Duke and Audrey waited until the next time the babies woke up to be fed before they went to bed themselves. Duke was still trying to get used to Audrey without the huge stomach again as he pulled her gently into his arms. When the babies woke up to eat next, Duke again did what would become routine until they were sleeping through the night. He got up and brought them to Audrey, dosing lightly as she fed them before changing them himself and putting them back down. By the time he got back to bed, Audrey was already back asleep.


	41. Chapter 41

The next morning after breakfast, Duke looked at the sleeping babies as he got his sling on. “Okay which one of you wants to come out to the garden with Daddy this morning?” he asked playfully as Audrey giggled. “No takers? Come on. It’s a nice day. Anyone?” About that time, little Nathan stretched in his sleep and grinned. “It looks like we have a volunteer. Come on Nate. Let’s go check out the garden.” He picked up the baby and set him in the sling, taking a moment to make him comfortable. “And you, little princess, if you’re good for Mommy, you can come out next time.” 

“I’m sure she’ll be a little angel,” Audrey said amusedly, stretching up to give Duke a lingering kiss before he headed out the door. 

Duke first went to milk the horse before he checked for anything that was ready for harvest and ended up with one wheelbarrow full which he took inside where Audrey was working on preparing and storing for the winter. A lot of the crops would still be good through the fall, but some of them wouldn’t last much longer and those were the ones they needed to get up now. Through the whole thing he kept up a steady stream of chatter to the sleeping baby and when he woke up to eat a few hours later, Duke took him back up to the house where his sister was already eating. 

He busied himself with working on the project that Audrey had been in the middle of before the interruption and then helped with the burping and changing before he tucked Gloria in the sling for her turn outside and finished up the work that had been left for the last couple days, again with the steady stream of chatter. When Audrey called him in for lunch, they just barely had time to finish eating before the babies were hungry again. 

After they ate and were settled, Duke asked Audrey, “Will you be okay if I make a run to the storage? I want to grab some more hide for blankets since we got surprised with two of them and the stuff for a few more diapers preferably too.”

“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” she assured him amusedly, finding it cute how he was loathe to go too far. She knew he’d get over it soon enough. “In fact, why don’t you do a little hunting while you’re out. We’re running a little low on meat.” There were enough animals around through the winter that they didn’t have to worry so much about stocking long term, which was a good thing since the meat wouldn’t stay good through the entire winter anyway, but they still didn’t like running too low. 

“You’re sure?” Duke asked and when he got a nod, he returned it. “Okay. I’ll be back before dark then.” 

“Just be careful,” she told him, giving him a deep loving kiss. 

“Always am,” he chuckled, grabbing his weapons and the empty wheelbarrow. He went to park the wheelbarrow at the storage cave first before he went hunting. He would grab the stuff on the way back. 

Audrey was trying to get ahead on as much work as she could for now since she knew that the babies would be waking up more after the first few days and would be more of a handful, so she did as much as she could manage, fighting through her own tiredness, but still taking it easy and doing whatever she could sitting down. She was just stirring the stew for dinner when Duke came in with a sheepish look and a full sling and she raised a curious eyebrow. 

“So…we might have a little problem…or a good thing…not sure yet,” he said hesitantly. 

“Okay…” she said leadingly, clearly waiting for more. 

Duke reached into the sling and pulled out two lynx kittens. “Their mom almost got me. I didn’t realize until she was already dead that she was a mom when I heard these two mewling from the brush.” 

Audrey sighed heavily, looking between the cats and the babies. “So you brought them home,” she said in a clear tone of ‘you better have a good reason or else’. 

“Yeah, I figure we can try and hand rear them. See if we can get them to see us as family to be protected and all,” Duke explained. It wasn’t the first time they’d killed a mom, though they did try to avoid it when they could, but this was the first mom lynx and with the new babies, more protection could only be a good thing. 

“I guess I can see that, but how are we going to manage them with the babies?” Audrey asked. 

“See, I was thinking about that on the way back. Since the babies will be using their cradles for at least the next few months, the cribs could be used as pens when we can’t be paying too close attention until we’re sure they can be trusted. We can use the horse milk for them and we’ll have to figure out some kind of bottles until they’re old enough to drink it from a bowl, but…” he shrugged. 

“Okay, that all makes sense. I guess we can give it a try. As long as you’re not gonna ask me to nurse them,” Audrey laughed. 

“Have you seen those teeth? I wouldn’t do that to you,” Duke chuckled as she came over to look closer at the kittens. 

“They are really cute,” she said as she reached out to pet one behind the ears. 

“Just remember before you get too attached that it might not work,” Duke chuckled knowing that she was completely won over now given the way she was cooing at the kittens. 

“And if it doesn’t, we’ll do what we need to do. We have our own babies to protect,” Audrey nodded. “Are they boys or girls?” 

“One of each,” he told her. “You can name the girl if I can name the boy.”

“I can live with that. I’ll need to think about it though. What’s the boy’s name?” 

“Hercules,” Duke smirked. 

Audrey snorted in amusement and shook her head. “Why don’t you put them in the crib-pen for now and get cleaned up for dinner. You can get them some milk while I’m feeding ours after dinner.” 

“Okay, let me just bring the rest of the stuff inside first before it gets any darker,” he told her, setting the kittens down before going to wheel in the wheelbarrow and setting it next to the door for now. Everything else could be done after dinner. He’d already fed the kittens directly from their recently dead mother before he brought them back so they should be okay for a while. He was pretty sure they didn’t need to eat as often as human babies at least. 

By the time they finished eating, Audrey had decided to name the girl Sheba after the queen of Sheba and Duke agreed that it was a good name. It took him a little while to figure out how to use the hide of the mother lynx’s mammary area which he’d saved as the likely best option, to fill up with horse milk and get the kittens fed, but he managed it by the time Audrey finished feeding theirs. By the time the babies were settled again, the kittens were done. “We should go ahead and introduce them…carefully of course,” Duke suggested. “Get them used to all of us at once.”

“Okay,” Audrey agreed, taking a baby in each arm and walking over while Duke held a kitten in each arm and held them over to let them sniff, both of them ready to move back immediately if necessary, but it seemed to go well. The kittens, well sated and sleepy themselves, seemed curious about the babies rather than aggressive and sniffed them up and down. Sheba even licked Nathan’s cheek before Duke switched arms with the kittens and let them get used to the other baby. They didn’t take long though, not wanting to overwhelm them, before Duke was getting the kittens back in the crib, glad that the bars were close enough together to hold them, while Audrey put the babies back in their cradles. The kittens burrowed in between the layers of bear hide and curled up to sleep making Audrey ‘aww’ at their cuteness. 

That settled, Duke turned his mind to work. “So, I got some lynx hide and warthog hide for the blankets too. It dawned on me that the bear, while softer, isn’t the best for indoors with the fire going and as warm as it still is outside during the day.”

“Yeah, I figured out the same thing. They kept getting overheated today,” Audrey nodded. “We have enough of the bear ones for when they go outside in the winter. Six of both of the other two should be enough. Three for each of them.” 

“Yeah, I brought plenty if you want to work on that and I can start slicing up the lynx meat to brine?” he gave her the easy job and she easily agreed. Duke handed her the two rolls of hide, which were the same three that they tended to use for themselves too. There were a variety of animals that they ended up eating, but those were the main three they used for clothes. The few rats they ended up having to kill they used the hide for outdoor or disposable purposes. It was too coarse to be comfortable and too heavy to be used for lighter wear. The warthog hide was relatively coarse too, but not as bad and was light enough for summer wear. The lynx was good medium thickness and the bear for the harsh winter. The smaller animals like rabbits and foxes were usually used for things like hats, gloves, and shoes. Smaller, of course, was relative here. They were still about waist high to Duke when standing.


	42. Chapter 42

They had two barrels set for brining at the moment that were empty. One spare that hadn’t had anything in it yet and one that they’d just used the last of the lynx yesterday. They tried not to mix meats if they could help it, so both of those could be used for this one. They still had a little left over but they could make that up for steaks tomorrow before it went bad. By the time he was done with that, Audrey had finished cutting out the twelve new blankets and had them all folded and put away in the storage cubbies under the crib with the rest of the bear blankets. She had kept two of the lynx blankets out for the night though, but they would wait to change them until the next feeding. 

Once Duke washed up he went over to sit next to Audrey on the couch and pull her into his arms. “You were okay this afternoon with me gone? They didn’t give you too much trouble?” he asked lovingly. 

“We were fine,” she assured him as she snuggled against him. “We’re going to have to get used to leaving one at a time for a while, you know.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Duke sighed. “It was just easier to consider when we thought there was going to be one baby. Two can be a lot to handle.”

“And now with two kittens on top of it,” Audrey chuckled. “But we’ll manage. We have enough meat for a few weeks now and the supplies for quite a few projects so other than refilling the salt water barrels once a week, we should have time to get a good routine going before we have to do it again.”

“And by then we should know how closely we need to watch the kittens around the babies too,” Duke nodded. 

“We should also introduce them to the horses tomorrow,” Audrey suggested. “We’re not going to keep them inside all the time when they get bigger and since they usually hunt horses, both them and the horses need to learn to recognize and trust each other too.” 

“That’s a good point,” Duke nodded. “I’ll take care of that tomorrow.” 

The next day, Audrey was feeling up to getting back to the more physical work too and she went outside with Duke to introduce the kittens to the horses. They decided to leave the babies sleeping in their cradles while they handled this part in case things went bad. The horses were more than a little skittish, but the fact that they trusted Duke and Audrey and the lynxes were kittens helped. It wasn’t until a few of the bolder ones came to meet them with no trouble that the rest of them joined in. Duke and Audrey were each holding a kitten and petting them gently, trying to get them to associate the horses with good feelings and judging by the purring the kittens were doing it was going well. 

Once they were all acquainted, they took the kittens back inside and each grabbed a baby, letting the kittens roam the house since the babies wouldn’t be there and then they hit the fields, each with a baby in their sling. Duke resolved to making a rocking chair for outside when Audrey complained about having to go in to sit down and feed them and he added that to his small project list, even putting it ahead of the crib that wouldn’t be needed for a while. He’d learned that the kittens needed to eat as often as the babies after all, so he’d taken the effort to get them on the same schedule which would be especially helpful overnight so he went in with Audrey to take care of the kittens. He knew that the horse milk wasn’t the best for them, but it was all they had and even if Audrey did manually pump for them human milk would probably be even worse, not to mentions she couldn’t possibly produce enough for two babies /and/ two kittens and their kids came first obviously. 

Duke sat down next to Audrey feeding the babies with the kittens on his lap, one arm wrapped around both of those while his other hand held the double-nipples for them to drink from. The more they could do as a family, especially things like this, the more the cats would see them as such when they got older. He still stayed ready to move fast if the kittens got aggressive though of course. Every morning and evening they would take the kittens out to spend a little time with the horses too and make everyone friends. 

Once they were in for the night they also cuddled the kittens and babies together for a little while before putting the kittens back in the crib-pen for the night. It was two weeks before they were comfortable letting the kittens roam with the babies in the house too, but only when they were both there within arm’s reach. They weren’t sure how much it helped that the babies’ blankets were from the kittens’ mom, but it probably did help at least a little bit. Audrey had taken to sanding down the wood for the second crib now that the rocking chair loveseat for outside was done while Duke worked on sewing more diapers. He was still the best at sewing so she left him to that job. They got up to eight diapers before they ran out of flannel, but four had been getting unsustainable. They weren’t even managing to get completely dry before having to be changed again. Once they were done, Duke started putting the crib together with the pieces that Audrey had sanded down. 

When the kittens started begging for meat, and they learned that they were able to eat it, they watched the babies a little closer for a while, but when there was still no aggressiveness towards them they started to relax and allow a little more freedom. They still continued putting the kittens up at night until they were about two months old. They guessed that they’d been a few weeks old when Duke found them so a few weeks older than their babies. That also coincided with when theirs started sleeping through the night. The kittens had been sleeping through the night for a while. At least when it came to feeding. They were often up playing together at random times but were down to twice a day on milk and once a day with a chunk of a meat. They weren’t crass enough to feed them their mother obviously, and they ate mostly the bear meat that was nearing the end of its cycle. 

The babies started waking up more often and enjoyed the kittens greatly. Audrey nearly had a heart attack the first time a tiny fist closed on an ear and tugged, but it all ended okay. The kitten yowled and jerked away but didn’t bite or claw and after that both she and Duke gained the last bit of trust in the kittens and they became fully family. Winter was setting in as they deemed the kittens old enough to spend more time outside and they started hunting for themselves, sometimes even dragging things up for the rest of the family too, but not often. Usually only when there was still a lot left once they were full and that was usually set aside for them for later anyway since it was already gnawed on. They did appreciate the extra bones though which always came in handy and sometimes they could even get good portions of undamaged hide too. 

The cats had started a system of scratching at the door when they wanted to come inside and usually spent the nights curled up by the fire after running around all day outside. They chased the horses often, but that was more of a game. They never hurt the horses and the horses didn’t take too long to figure that out and see it as a game too. The horses had actually started letting them ride after the babies were born, but only Audrey at first. Duke had to ride with her for the first few times before he became acceptable too. The babies were always allowed with them though. The horses seemed to have adopted them as family too. 

Winter was usually spent working primarily on indoor crafting projects aside from getting firewood and water and the occasional hunting as needed, but this winter was different. With the babies and the cats and the new closeness of the horses, they often spent a few hours in the afternoons outside, the babies always wrapped in the heavy bear blankets of course and only when the show was less than two feet high. They couldn’t even push the door open when it was higher than that anyway. Thankfully, the summer had seen Duke putting windows in the house to help with the heat. They didn’t have glass of course, just shutters that they could open and close as needed. When the snow was too high, they opened those to let the cats in and out. They wondered how it would work once they were fully grown the next winter because they barely fit this winter. Duke considered putting in another larger window to be used only for that purpose.


	43. Chapter 43

This winter their indoor crafting projects included more barrels thanks to having two more mouths to feed soon as the babies got into more solid foods. That meant storing more food which meant more barrels. They could never have too many though. Well until they ran out of room for them at least, but they still had a long way to go for that. Audrey did most of the work on the barrels though as Duke worked on sewing clothes for the babies who were starting to move around more. They had already started rolling over and were starting to try and crawl so they needed more than just swaddling blankets. 

They had no intention of letting the babies crawl around outside until spring at least so they focused on light and medium weight clothes. It took Duke a few tries to get them the right sizes, too used to making adult sized things, but he managed eventually, and they put the bigger stuff aside for when they got older. They only had three outfits in each weight for themselves since they laundered them daily anyway, but they decided to make twice that for the babies since they would be messier. It still used about a quarter of the hide since they were tiny, so they weren’t worried about waste. 

They quickly figured out a way to cut down on washing the clothes though by stripping them down to their diapers before giving them the mashed foods they’d started on to supplement nursing. It was near the end of winter when they managed to crawl for the first time and Gloria was the first to get it, but Nathan wasn’t far behind, clearly annoyed that his sister kept getting away from him. The cats were almost as happy as the parents since they saw the babies as adequate playmates now. Their favorite game was bumping the babies with their heads making them fall over and giggle and the adults laugh. 

Once Duke had all the clothes they would need for the next year…probably…he started on two more chairs for the kitchen table. He made them high enough for the babies to sit in, but in such a way that they could be lowered as they grew by just sawing off the bottoms of the legs and the first time they used them, eating somewhere but their parents laps, they were thrilled and spent the whole meal banging their hands on the table and giggling. 

There was still a little bit of snow on the ground when they needed to go out and start getting the garden ready for planting, so they modified the carrying slings to hold them upright instead of cradling them and got to work. During nap time they were turned to face their parent and dozed that way. When they were awake they were facing out and watching everything that was going on happily. They still got a little fussy when they wanted down though so when it got too bad they would take turns taking them inside so they could play for a little while. 

Once the snow was all gone, the babies got to crawl around outside for the first time and they were ecstatic. They knew that the horses would be careful where they stepped though they did watch nervously for the first while before they could be sure of that and the cats helped to keep them corralled while Duke and Audrey worked, but they still had to take frequent breaks to fetch them when they got too far away. Once the cats learned where the boundaries were, they helped to keep them contained within them, cutting down on the interruptions. 

It wasn’t long after they got the first round of planting done that Nathan said his first word. “Dada!” he called as he lifted his arms to Duke who beamed happily and picked him up swinging him around. Seeing the treatment her brother got for it soon had Gloria mimicking him with her own, “Dada!” Audrey pretended to pout that they’d said Dada before Mama, but she knew that it was just because the D was easier for them to pronounce and it usually went that way. Mostly she was just thrilled for Duke who was so happy. It had been a long almost a year since the babies were born and they’d been run ragged more often than not, but it was so worth it. She wouldn’t have traded a second of it for the world. She didn’t want to consider how much more difficult it would have been if they hadn’t gone through the hardest part in winter when there wasn’t as much work though. 

Since keeping track of time was complicated enough that they rarely bothered, they didn’t really have a birthday or anything for them so Audrey chose the time they first started to toddle around as the time to start weaning them from nursing and switch them to horse milk. It also coincided with the start of the second round of planting which was when the work really started to pick up so it was good timing. She hadn’t realized the toll that nursing was taking on her energy until after she stopped. Duke had noticed that she had been working slower and doing less, but he hadn’t said a word. He still thought she had the harder job with keeping their kids healthy and fed and he would have picked up a lot more of the slack if he’d needed to without complaint. 

Duke and Audrey had been taking turns hunting and visiting the storage so the babies hadn’t left the clearing by fall, but they decided it was time. Duke carried both of the kids while Audrey pushed the wheelbarrow to the storage cave. They needed to stock up for winter projects including grabbing a few extra sanding stones for the toddlers to play with their own ‘projects’. Among the things they grabbed were a whole armload of bear vertebrae. When Audrey asked what they were for, Duke just smirked and told her it was a surprise. They also got plenty of hide for more clothes since they were starting to outgrow what they currently had. By the time winter hit, they would be out. This time they would also be making them each one snow outfit from the bear hide too. 

They had more than enough barrels by now, having gone a little overboard last winter and doubled what they previously had, giving them a total of sixty. They even had two small toy barrels where they kept all the toys that Duke and Audrey had carved for the babies during the quiet moments and another larger one where they started keeping wood scraps for more of them and still had a lot of spares laying around being used as tables. Needless to say, barrels weren’t on the list this year and they needed to find other things to keep busy. Duke got it in his head to build them a swing set that could grow with them, not that he had any idea how to manage that second part yet, but he would figure it out. They also wanted to build some little rocking chairs for them to sit in and a little craft table now that they were getting older. Most of that would be done with wood that they would get near home though so the wheelbarrow wasn’t too overloaded as they headed back. 

Unfortunately, they were only about halfway back when they encountered a bear and the fear they felt when facing their first one seemed like nothing compared to what they felt now. Audrey abandoned the wheelbarrow and grabbed the kids that Duke all but threw to her and she took off running to find a place to hide as Duke grabbed his spear and played distraction by charging it. It wasn’t until Audrey and the babies were safely away that Duke’s panic calmed enough that he could actually think and focus on taking it down. That part he had gotten down to a science over the years though and it just involved pissing it off enough that it quit trying to play and tried to take a bite, bringing it’s head close enough for Duke to phase the spear through it’s brain. 

No sooner than it hit the ground, Duke took off in the direction Audrey ran, finding her and the babies hiding under an outcropping of rocks. When she saw him coming, she crawled out just as he reached them and he pulled them all into a relieved hug, peppering all three heads with kisses before pulling back and inspecting both of the kids, running his hands over their faces and hair, pressing more kisses to their heads in the process and then giving Audrey the same treatment before his adrenaline calmed down enough in the knowledge that they were all okay aside from some minor scratches from the running and sliding in and out of the hiding spot. While Duke was assuring himself that they were all okay, Audrey was doing the same with him as much as she could with her arms full. The babies had stopped crying about the time they saw their dad coming and were completely calm by then.


	44. Chapter 44

They headed back to the bear and Duke considered the best way to do this before telling Audrey, “Why don’t you run the wheelbarrow back home and dump it while I start on this. The kids will be fine here with me and Hercules and Sheba should be back from their hunting soon,” he told her. The cats had taken off while they were loading up in the cave to do their own hunting while the humans were occupied. 

“You’re sure you’ll be okay?” she asked, hesitant to leave her babies right now despite the fact that Duke’s suggestion made sense. They all knew that no other predators would be nearby with the bear around and only the cats’ loyalty to their family would make them an exception to that. 

Duke pulled her into another tight hug as she put the kids down and kissed her gently. “If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t have suggested it,” he assured her. Home was only a little over ten minutes away and he was sure she would be moving faster than usual so she would be back in about twenty minutes. “If you can manage to coax one of the horses out of the clearing with the cart bring that loaded with spare barrels and we can head to the ocean to fill them up before using the cart to haul meat back. If not, just bring as many as you can get in the wheelbarrow along with one to hold the sinew.” 

“Okay,” Audrey nodded, kissing him one more time before turning to grab the abandoned wheelbarrow and then kissing each of the kids on the head and heading for home as quickly as she could. 

Duke grabbed a nearby vine and wrapped it around his waist before tying each end around a kid’s waist, just to make sure they didn’t get too far while he was busy. He did keep as much of an eye on him as he could, but they could be pretty fast by now too. He started his initial cuts on both sides, starting from the back to keep the kids out of the flowing blood as it sunk into the ground. They would probably get quite a bit on them anyway and he wasn’t worried about that, but he didn’t want them to end up drowning in it. He was just starting to peel up from the bottom when Audrey got back, leading one of the horses with the big cart that just barely fit between most of the trees. 

He could see how much she visibly relaxed when she caught sight of the relatively bloody, but clearly safe and unhurt toddlers. That prompted Duke to ask, “Do you want to take over here for now while I go fill the barrels or do the barrels yourself?” 

“I’ll take over here,” she said relieved that he’d offered. “But you might as well wait until the hide is off so you can take that with you.” He nodded in acceptance as he unwound the vine from himself and helped her wind it around herself instead. That had never been an option before since this was the first time they’d gotten one of the horses out of the clearing so he hadn’t even considered it. Once they got to the top part, Duke suggested letting the kids do the slide and Audrey laughed and agreed. It would remain to be seen if it would work, but either way they would have fun with it. 

They managed to coax them into each grabbing a corner of the already cut hide and then sliding down and it did work. Not quite as well as with the heavier Audrey, but it was good enough and didn’t take them long to get the biggest portion of the hide off and rolled up. Duke then took over leading the horse the rest of the way to the ocean. The ten spare barrels and the rolled up hide only filled up half of the cart so once they were filled and loaded back up, he led the horse back to the bear after a stop at the storage cave to cut up the wet hide into chunks that he could hang up to dry. It would take a while in the damp cave with no fire, but they weren’t in any rush so it didn’t matter. Once they were back he could tell how nervous the horse was being here even with the bear dead, so once he loaded up everything that Audrey had already cut they switched with the kids again and she took the horse and cart back, unloaded everything into the house and let the horse go, taking the wheelbarrow back for the rest of the trips. 

When Audrey got back and saw the babies sitting on top of one of the huge slabs of bear meat and bouncing she snorted amusedly and shook her head. The cats had also made it back while she’d been gone and were playing tug of war with a smaller slab of meat. She started loading up the wheelbarrow and waited to load the piece that was currently being a trampoline last and she and Duke took turns taking trips to the house and the storage cave to empty the sinew, and staying to work on rendering the bear. Once the sun started to set, they wrapped up and loaded up what they had left into the wheelbarrow, sitting the sinew on top, and headed for home, leaving what was left of the bear for the nocturnal rats. They would come back for the bones in a few days once they were clean. 

They’d gotten better at rendering animals over the years, so they ended up with more and more. There was a little less than usual this time though with the addition of the kids and the added distraction. There was still a good amount more than their first bear though so it would keep them for a while. Once they got back and unloaded, the first priority was to bathe both themselves and the children in the not quite too cold yet lake. They barely managed to get that finished in time to dart back into the house before the sun was completely down. Just because it wasn’t /too/ cold didn’t mean it wasn’t cold so they were quick to get the fire going even if they didn’t need to make dinner. Thankfully, the kids were still eating mostly mashed foods so they were easier to feed. It was much later than their usual dinner already, so they weren’t about to wait much longer. 

The kids were fed and into bed by the time their dinner was finished cooking and they sat down to eat with a heavy sigh. The bad part of taking down a bear was the all-nighters that followed trying to get it all processed and put up before it went bad. And then the day after that trying to catch up on the garden work they missed while doing it. Thankfully the cats were used to having piles of meat around and didn’t try to take what wasn’t offered even if they hadn’t already eaten so they just laid down in their usual place in front of the fire while Duke and Audrey finished dinner and then started slicing up the meat and putting it into the freshly filled barrels. 

They took breaks for meals once the kids woke up and kept them busy with their toys, only occasionally having to take a break to occupy them. They finally finished that evening, just in time to wash up in the lake, taking turns watching the kids, and then start on dinner. Once again, the kids were fed and in bed before they got to their own dinner and they were out like a light the second they finished eating only to be woken up at the crack of dawn with twin calls of, “Mama. Dada. Hung’y,” accompanied by the requisite poking. 

They dragged themselves out of bed and got a simple breakfast of leftover bread slathered with jam into all four of them before heading out to the garden to start catching up on what they’d missed the last two days. Usually, they only ended up spending about half the day in the garden or less, but today they took the whole day, much to the irritation of the kids who wanted attention. They promised them that they would take some time to play tomorrow though, not that the promise helped much, but it made them feel better to have made it at least. They even lived up to that promise in the morning, saving their daily garden work for after lunch that day, feeling badly for neglecting the kids so much the last few days.


	45. Chapter 45

Duke worked on the vertebrae cups in the evenings over the next couple days and Audrey figured out what they were for when he started harvesting extra berries and other paint materials. He mixed them together into different colors and unveiled the finger paints to the kids along with a series of square flat pieces of wood to paint on when the first snow fell and marked the start of staying inside most of the winter. Naturally, the paint didn’t stay on the wood slabs and ended up all over the floor, walls, couch, cats, and parents, but that was why it was made from berries. Sure, there was a little staining, but oh well. No one really minded and most of it washed out and if they ate the paint…no problem. They had a blast that winter. Especially once the toddler sized craft table and chairs were finished. 

It wasn’t just painting they did though. They also worked on sanding things which they thought was great and stretching sinew by playing tug of war. They were rarely able to be used for much, if anything, but it got them practice for when they were older. When spring came and the swing set was revealed they were even more excited and the fencing around the garden was expanded to include it to keep the horses from knocking it over. It also gave the kids something to do while Duke and Audrey were busy in the garden. 

All the sanding practice came in handy when they finally got started on the boat the spring before they would turn three. With all the other work to be done, they didn’t get to work on it more than a few hours a day, but it was a whole family affair and the kids got to sand until their hearts content. They were also old enough to help with the little things in the garden which made that work go faster, so their normal schedule was working in the garden in the mornings and then walking down to the beach after lunch to work on the boat. When needed, one of the adults would disappear for an afternoon to go hunting. 

The boat work was set aside in the winter though for the most part. They did bring home the smaller pieces to work on inside. Even if it didn’t ever get on the water, it was a fun family project. The spring they would be turning five they were taught to use knives, though they didn’t get their own until they were turning six. They also started learning how to shoot the bow with flattened arrows. Duke had the idea to put paint on the ends to mark where they hit and they each chose a different color and made a game of it. 

When they would have turned seven, they took them hunting for the first time. They had been helping to render down the animals for years, but this would be their first time hunting. Duke and Audrey intentionally took them to an area known more for rabbits and foxes. Even with their regular interactions with Hercules and Sheba they still didn’t want to pit the kids against a lynx at their age and there was no way they were strong enough to pierce a warthog’s hide with their spears. Duke and Audrey wanted them to be able to take down the animal themselves to build confidence so the small stuff it was. Not that they weren’t on hand ready with their own spears if anything happened. 

Duke and Audrey had a long discussion about the subject before they went and agreed to only intervene if the problem was serious and potentially life-threatening. As much as they wanted to protect their kids, in this world they had to walk a line between protecting them and making them strong enough to survive. In the end they hadn’t needed to intervene. Nathan spotted a fox first and drew his bow to shoot it, being better with the bow than his sister. His arrow hit the fox’s flank which pissed it off and it went to charge them which was when Gloria’s spear came up and made the kill. It was a method which they would use for years to come since the arrows weren’t strong enough to actually kill anything but birds unless you hit it exactly right such as through the eye which was a one in a million shot. 

Gloria did end up getting clawed in the arm as the fox went down, but she didn’t care. They were both on such a high from their first successful hunt that nothing could bring down the mood. They even rendered it down themselves right there in the field, insisting that their parents not help except by carrying things which they grudgingly accepted. When they wanted to keep the tail for a trophy Duke tacked it up on the wall between their beds. But not until after Gloria’s arm was cleaned, medicated, and bandaged. 

The boat didn’t get finished until over a year later, it having taken five years due to the need to take a break and build a dock for it once the base was done. There was no way they could have dragged the completed boat into the water so the rest of it had to be built on the water. At least they had plenty of proof that it would float by the time it was done. It had a living area just barely big enough for all four of them, but Duke had decided to pass on a kitchen for now. They wouldn’t be taking any long trips either way. No more than a week or two. They could just bring fruits, vegetables, jerkys, and precooked meats along when they did, and he had thought to include a storage area for that. Along with the hold specifically for the fish which would be the main purpose of any trips. 

Once it was finished, it was time to name it. Audrey suggested the Cape Rouge, but Duke shot that one down. He didn’t want to name his new boat after his old one. After his old restaurant though he would accept and the next day was spent carving the words Grey Gull into the bow, filling it with red berry paint, and sealing over the paint with resin to keep it from washing off. He took the maiden voyage alone, not wanting to risk his family if she wasn’t as seaworthy as he thought but promised to make it a short one so that Audrey wouldn’t have to worry for so long. 

The kids were picking up more and more of the chores as they got older, so it wasn’t a hardship for him to be gone for a few days and when he got back two days later he came bearing enough fish to keep them eating for a month and feeling more relaxed than he had in years. Audrey just gave him a knowing smile at his demeanor. She’d known how much he missed the sea and the freedom of it and it was like all the tension of the last decade plus had just evaporated during his trip. By the time he got back it was time to buckle down for the last of the harvest before winter and it was all hands on deck to get it done. 

Once it was all in and stored and preserved though, they packed up enough for a week and the whole family boarded the Grey Gull to take a nice long fishing trip. Since they didn’t have the facilities for a fire on board for heat, they had to go before it got cold enough for them to freeze even with their heavy bear hide clothes. They had just finished up the fish he’d gotten last time, so they were ready for more. The kids had been fishing since they were old enough to hold a pole, but this was their first time on the ocean, both for fishing and on the boat. Other than when they were building her obviously which they didn’t count since it stayed tied to the dock. 

Duke taught Audrey and the kids how to work the sails and judge the wind. They’d long learned how to navigate by the stars and the landmarks, that being one of the first lessons the kids learned since reading and writing were pointless here. As long as they didn’t get too far from shore, which they didn’t plan to, they would be okay. Duke even let them all practice at different times over the course of the week and by the time they were headed home, they could all operate the boat with no problems. He even let the kids take turns driving back. With supervision of course. 

The first night they were back home, as soon as the kids were in bed and sleeping soundly, Duke closed the thick curtains around his and Audrey’s bed so that he could make up for lost time. The only bad thing about being on the boat was that the quarters were far too close for them to have ‘alone time’. He’d installed the curtains around their bed not long after the kids had been born for just this purpose. With the fireplace heating the whole house, it wasn’t practical to have separate rooms, so this was his solution. There was a hook on the wall so that the curtains could stay hooked back the rest of the time, otherwise they blocked too much heat, but when they were closed it meant they were generating their own heat.


End file.
